As
Sri Lanka Taxes and Cuts NGOs, Parades the Detained Doctors,
UN Has Nothing to Say
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, July 9 -- As the Rajapaksa administration orders the Red
Cross and other international non-governmental organizations to close
offices and scale down their operations in eastern and northern Sri
Lanka, the UN and its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs so far have said nothing.
Inner City Press asked Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas on July 9 about the
Red Cross, for example, being forced to close its operations in
Trincomalee and Batticaloa where it has 150 staff members. When Sudan
threw out some 200 staff from Darfur, the UN criticized it
immediately and loudly. Here, the UN said nothing and, when asked,
Ms. Montas said "we are trying to get more information."
Video here,
from Minute 15:18.
On
July 8, the Sri
Lankan Army put on display the doctors, imprisoned for seven weeks,
who had remained in the northern conflict zone offering treatment and
casualty figures. Again, the UN had nothing to say. Ban Ki-moon and
his top humanitarian aide John Holmes had both in the past spoken
about the doctors and their treatment. But confronted with the
grotesque display of imprisoned and presumptively threatened
humanitarians being forced to make pro-government statement the UN --
a club of governments -- had nothing to say.
Inner
City Press on
July 9 asked Ban's spokesperson about the doctors. She said, there
were their statements earlier and then their statements when they got
"out of jail... I can't say what is true." Amnesty
International and others have said that statements after detention
like this are not credible. But the UN apparently no longer cares
what the
doctors say.
Inner
City Press asked if Ban is requesting that they
not be put on trial. Ms. Montas said "he didn't mention trial
because there was no question of trial...As far as I know they've
been released."
The
UN is trying
and largely succeeding, for now, in putting into the past its
shameful inaction during the carnage in Sri Lanka.
UN's Ban in Sri Lanka, doctors and Red Cross not shown
In recent days the
UN has promised but not delivered answers on a series of troubling
developments in Sri Lanka.
Inner
City Press asked about reports of
government soldiers firing their weapons in the UN-funded internment
camps in Vavuniya. We don't know about that, Ban's spokesperson
Michele Montas said, we just don't have access. Inner City Press
asked why the UN provides funds if it cannot verify and answer for
its use. Ms. Montas said she would look into how it works. But after
that, no information or answers were provided.
Nor
did the UN's
Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have anything to
say when asked about the Sri Lankan government taxing NGOs, which is
otherwise only done in Burma. Now, no comment on the government's
order to the Red Cross and others to scale back their operations.
Even in following up on the Joint Statement Ban issued with Mahinda
Rajapaksa, the UN has no follow through. Watch this site.
* * *
In
Sri Lanka, UN Hires Lawyer for Arrested Staff, But Will It Protect
Anyone?
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, July 1 -- After more than a week of silence by the UN about two
of its staff members grabbed up by Sri Lanka's government, on
July 1 Inner City Press again asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's
spokesperson Michele Montas about their fate. This time, Ms. Montas
had an answer. The UN has "hired a lawyer who has visited"
the UN staff, who are "still detained in Colombo." Video
here, from Minute 21:15.
The
head
of the UN
Refugee Agency in Sri Lanka Amin Awad issued a strange
statement saying in essence that the government is free to detain
staff as long as
procedures are followed. But despite top UN humanitarian John Holmes'
statement that unlike international staff, national staff members of
the UN are not immune, the Staff Union disagrees. They criticize
Awad's statement, and counter that national staff have immunity
within the scope of their work.
Troublingly,
sources in Sri Lanka describe to Inner City Press even the torture of
UN staff, and of doctors disappeared by the government after
remaining in the conflict zone offering treatment and casualty
figures. A Red Cross worker who had been in the conflict zone has
been killed in Jaffna, where now newspaper editors face death
threats.
Is all
of this consistent with Ban Ki-moon and Majinda
Rajapaksa's Joint Statement? At the UN, answers like the hiring of a
lawyer to work on the case of grabbed-up staff are only given if the
questions keep being asked. Apparently, the UN would rather the
questions stopped.
UN's Amin Awad, grabbed-up UN staff not shown
In
fact, lawyers
in Sri Lanka who represent those accused of Tamil Tiger sympathies
have themselves been labeled as traitors by the country's military.
The UN has already shown it cannot protect its own staff in Sri
Lanka. Can it even protect the lawyers it hires for its staff? Watch
this site.
Footnote:
Inner City Press asked outgoing Turkish Ambassador and Security
Council president Baki Ilkin if he thought the Council's sessions on
Sri Lanka, held in the UN's basement, had helped in any way to
protect civilians in Vanni. "There is no gauge," he said,
but :"everything the Security Council does or says -- or doesn't
do or say -- has an impact." Video here,
from Minute 2:33.
In
one view, the
Council's refusal to put Sri Lanka on its agenda, and relegation of
the issue to ill-attended basement session has the impact of
emboldening the Rajapaksa government to make its final assault in the
Vanni, and to now use UN funds to detain Tamils in camps and grab up
UN staff. Everything not done or not said has an effect. Watch this
site.
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