Executions
by Sri Lankan Army To Be Raised to
UN's Ban in Norway, a Post Mona Juul Memo "Moral Authority" Test
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 30 -- The
video
footage
depicting the Sri Lankan Army committing summary executions will be
raised to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during his impending visit
to Oslo, Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International
Development Erik Solheim has vowed. On
August 26
at a regular press briefing before Ban left New York, Inner City Press asked
his Spokesperson
Michele Montas if he or she had seen the footage, and for a UN
Secretariat comment. There was no response to the video, and so the the
link to the video was provided.
In the four days since there has been no UN Secretariat* comment.
Later on August 26 at a
hastily convened stakeout in front of the UN Security
Council, Inner City Press asked August's Council president and UK
Ambassador John Sawers about the footage. He said he'd yet to see it
but had read about it, and found it disturbing. He said the the UK
would expect it to be investigated, by Sri Lanka in the first
instance. Video here,
from Minute 6:12.
Sri Lanka has condemned
Solheim for calling
for a UN investigation. But it has not conducted any investigation of
its own: its High Commissioner in London issued a denial as soon as
the video came out. Is it Sri Lanka's vituperative reaction or
something else, observers wonder, that is holding Ban back from
commenting on the widely circulated video?
UN's Ban and Solheim, Ban reaction to execution
video not shown
This comes in the
context not only of The
Economist rating Ban three out of ten on speaking truth to
power, but
the more recent leaked memo by
Norway's deputy ambassador to the UN
criticizing Ban for, among other things, a lack of moral authority in
connection with Sri Lanka and his belated visit there. So what will
Ban say and do, when the issue is raised to him in Norway? Watch this
site.
Footnotes: Sawers also indicated
that no
Security Council member had yet requested a meeting about the
execution video, just has he'd said no Council member asked for a
meeting of any kind about the flooding of the UN-funded internment
camps in Northern Sri Lanka. France speaks often about les droits de
l'homme; the U.S. has an Office of War Crimes Issues which is
preparing a report on Sri Lanka due on September 21. How long will
the silence by these UN member states continue?
* - The UN Human Rights
Council's rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston has called
for an investigation. One wonders if this represents what Inner City
Press had been told by a staffer was going to be High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navi Pillay's response.
* * *
As
UN Mulls Sri Lankan Murder Video, Report on Camps Withheld, UK
Passes Buck
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 26 -- When a war crime is filmed and presented to the
UN, will it take action? On August 26, Inner City Press asked three
officials at the UN about the now widely circulated video
clip
depicting Sri Lankan soldiers shooting naked, blindfolded victims
in
the head.
At the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN
Spokesperson Michele Montas about "footage of what appears to be
Sri Lankan soldiers shooting naked, bound, unarmed people
[inaudible]. Is there any response by the UN to that footage?"
There was not.
Later another UN official said that the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights is considering how to authenticate
the footage, perhaps with outside experts, in order to act on it. But
how?
At
the Security
Council stakeout, Inner City Press asked the president of the Council
for this dwindling month, the UK's John Sawers, if he'd seen the
footage and what the UK proposes to do about it. He replied that
"first," he was appearing as President of the Council. He
said he hadn't yet seen the footage but had read about it. It does
seem "disturbing," he said, adding that it should be
investigated "in the first instance by the Sri Lanka
authorities." Video here,
from Minute 6:12.
But
the Mahinda
Rajapaksa administration has already curtailed its investigation into
the killing of 17 aid workers of Action
Contre La Faim, and declared
that its soldiers committed abuses. (Others in the administration
have said that winners are never tried for war crimes.) So at this
late date to defer to Sri Lanka to investigate the snuff film seems
misplaced.
UN's Ban views Manik Farm camp in May, deaths not shown
Among
NGOs working
in Sri Lanka, the level of disappointment at the UN and Ban Ki-moon
has grown. The groups are meeting one last time with UN country
representative Neil Buhne, to urge him to go public with the evidence
the UN has compiled. They say that Tamil females in the camps are
being used as comfort women. They say that UN has a report showing
that many people will die when the monsoon season comes if they
remain trapped in the camps. The UN is not releasing this report,
they say, asking why Ban Ki-moon appears so beholding to Rajapaksa.
In
Sri Lanka, the
administration is said to be concerned on this by only three things:
Delhi's reaction, an upcoming report to the U.S. Congress, and how
Rajapaksa is received at the UN General Assembly next month. Watch
this site.
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