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On Sri Lanka, Mexico Invokes Responsibility to
Protect, Rebukes Colombo's "Inaccuracies"
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, April 13 -- In the midst of a military offensive in
Northern
Sri Lanka in which over 3000 civilians have been killed, Sri
Lanka's Ministry
of Foreign Affairs has put out a statement that the government of
Mexico, which
requested UN Security Council briefings on the issue, has now committed
to keep
it off the Council's agenda.
Citing the
statement, Inner City Press on April 13
asked Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller if the Sri Lankan government is
accurate
that its Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona was told by Mexican vice
minister Gomez-Robledo
that "they do not have any intention of permitting the Sri Lankan
situation to be placed on the Security Council agenda" and that "the
Mexican authorities saw the parallels between their own experience in
Chiapas
and the negative impact of a cleverly manipulated propaganda machine."
Statement here,
video here
from Minute 8:42.
"It
is not an accurate statement," Ambassador Heller replied. "We were
very clear that in the case of Sri Lanka there is a concern of the
responsibility
to protect the population." Video here,
from Minute 9. The Responsibility to
Protect is a doctrine,
accepted in the UN General Assembly, that if a country cannot or does
not
protect its population from harm, the international community can
intervene to
do so.
Sri Lanka's and Foreign Secretary Palitha
Kohona's now rebuked mis-summary of their meeting with Mexican
officials is not
the first case of cognitive dissonance. It has happened regarding
telephone
calls with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon.
The Sri Lanka - Mexico meeting, R2P not shown
Inner City Press asked
at the UN noon briefing on
March 25:
Inner City Press: There was a
statement by the Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka that the country has
received
no criticism from the UN of how it’s conducting its conflict in the
north. He says that Ms. [Navi] Pillay, the Human Rights
Commissioner, “is
not the UN”, and apparently implies that, in the discussions between
the
President and the Secretary-General, there’s been no criticism
whatsoever of
any action of the Government. I wanted to know, is that
consistent with
your understanding of those calls?
Spokesperson Michele Montas:
As far as I know, a number of issues were raised. Humanitarian
issues
were also raised.
It should again be
noted that Sri Lanka's foreign secretary Palitha
Kohona, who said the UN High Commission for Human
rights "is not
the UN" and now blatantly mis-summarizes his meetings in Mexico himself
served in and led the UN's Treaty Section. "He knows better," one
official told Inner City Press. After a call by US Secretary of State
Hillary
Clinton to President Rajapaksa and his brother(s), Sri Lanka summarized
that
"Mrs. Clinton appreciated the assurances given by the Secretary of
Defense
that civilians would not be subjected to any attacks by the military,
stating
the U.S. looked forward to working with Sri Lanka once the current
conflict
ends.”
The US State
Department, to the contrary, said
that “The Secretary stated that the Sri
Lanka Army should not fire into the civilian areas of the conflict
zone... She
urged the President to give international humanitarian relief
organizations
full access to the conflict area and displaced persons camps, including
screening centers."
We
are
preparing a new report on these camps and centers, watch this site.
Inner City Press also asked Ambassador Heller
about the wording of the Council's North Korea Presidential Statement,
video here
from Minute 6:06, article here.
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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