Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

UN's Ban Speaks with Sri Lankan President, Internment Continues, S. Koreans Greeted

UNITED NATIONS, September 14 -- More than a week after Sri Lanka moved to expel UNICEF's spokesman James Elder, and months after two UN system staff members were grabbed and tortured, they say, by the government, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday morning called President Mahinda Rajapaksa, sources tell Inner City Press.

  They also say the issues were raised to Sri Lanka's new Ambassador to the UN Palitha Kohona on September 11. Earlier that day, Ban's Deputy Spokesperson told Inner City Press that the formal presentation of credentials to Mr. Ban by Ambassador Kohona, reportedly denied a visa by the UK, was "not a meeting," and that issues would not be raised.

  The question, however, is what will actually change inside Sri Lanka, where the UN continues funding what UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay calls internment camps. It's said that Ban's director of the Department of Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe will tell the Press about the issue at a press conference later on Monday. But there are other questions for him as well. Watch this site.

UN's Ban presses flesh with M. Rajapaksa, changes not seen

 Footnote: On the UN's second story, between the Security Council and Delegates' Lounge, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appeared Monday morning with an entourage including chief of staff Vijay Nambiar but not his deputy, and took photos with a group in from Seoul preparing the South Korean delegation's visit to the General Assembly meetings later this month.

  Later they were escorted by one of Ban's security officers to the elevators that head to the 38th floor. Some wondered if the similar preparatory delegations of other countries are given the same treatment. Time will tell.

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On Sri Lankan Torture and Exclusion, UN Gives Run Around, HSBC into Jaffna

UNITED NATIONS, September 13 -- With Sri Lanka refusing to let even the International Committee of the Red Cross see 10,000 of the people it has detained since May, while moving to expel UNICEF's Colombo-based spokesman James Elder, at the United Nations last week Inner City Press asked what Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will in fact do.

  On September 10, Inner City Press asked about the torture of two UN system staff members, first reported on by Inner City Press, and received in return a canned statement that Ban would raise the issue to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

   But the next day, when Inner City Press asked a Ban adviser who asked to be called only a "senior UN official" how Ban will proceed, since Rajapaksa canceled his attendance to the upcoming General Assembly meeting, two different answers emerged.

   The "senior UN official" said that "in the absence of Rajapaksa, the Prime Minister will be here. The new Ambassador, today, I think some of the issues will be raised." But moments before from the same rostrum, Ban's Deputy Spokesman Marie Okabe told Inner City Press that the day's presentation of credentials by Palitha Kohona to Ban "is not a meeting," implying that no substantive issue would be raised. It was just a photo-op:

Inner City Press: Marie, the Sydney Morning Herald has said that James Elder of UNICEF, whose visa is being revoked, is now receiving... threats by phone in Sri Lanka. Is that something that the UN is aware of, and will that issue and the issue of the two staff members that were allegedly tortured be raised by the Secretary-General to the new ambassador, Mr. [Palitha] Kohona, that he’s meeting today for the presentation of credentials?

Deputy Spokesperson Okabe: I am not aware of that report and, as you know, the presentation of credentials is not a meeting. He’s meeting a number of them -- I don’t have the whole list -- so it’s not an opportunity for him to sit down and have a meeting with them. But I mentioned to you yesterday and earlier this week that the Secretary-General, in his statement earlier this week, has said that he plans to be in touch with the President of Sri Lanka on both those issues.

Question: But is the President of Sri Lanka coming to the General Assembly? I thought he is actually not coming. So when is he going to speak to him?

Deputy Spokesperson: You’d have to ask the President of Sri Lanka whether he is coming to the General Assembly.

Question: When is the Secretary-General going to raise it to the President?

Deputy Spokesperson: I’ll let you know as soon as that happens.

  We're still waiting. British-based bank HSBC, on the other hand, is not waiting: with people still interned in the camps in Vavuniya, HSBC has bragged it is looking to move beyond Colombo and Kandy and open branch offices in Jaffna and elsewhere in the North. "HSBC is looking at opening branches in strategic locations in the North and East," its CEO for Sri Lanka and Maldives Nick A Nicolaou said.

  Some call it "banking on the bloodbath on the beach," and wonder how HSBC has to date escaped the boycott calls that have been directed at Victoria's Secret and GAP, including its ironically named Banana Republic brand.

A 2003 UN photo-op, Nicaragua's Hostage filing under watchful eyes

  With Sri Lanka reportedly on the verge of losing the EU's Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Plus tariff concession for textile exports, some wonder if Victoria's Secret will be exposed, and the complacency of the Banana Republic shaken up. Watch this site.

Footnote: at the U.S. embassy in Colombo, even the Number 2 Ambassador Moore has left, on September 13, leaving a decided Number 3 in charge. Moore auto-tells interlocutors "I departed Colombo September 13 at the end of my assignment. I will be back on this email address in mid-October. Please contact Acting DCM Rebecca Cohn for assistance until September 30 and DCM Valerie Fowler thereafter." The Obama Administration's ambassador Patricia Butenis is not due, it's said, until the end of October...

Here was the UN's official response on September 10 to the allegations that at least two UN system staff members in Sri Lanka were tortured:

Inner City Press: There was a report today that two UN system staff members in Sri Lanka had been tortured during their incarceration. Can you give both an update on what the UN has done and whether the UN knows that these individuals have been tortured?

Deputy Spokesperson: The United Nations has been and is extremely concerned about the continuing case of two national UN staff members detained by the Sri Lankan authorities in late June. The two men were detained while deployed to Vavuniya by the United Nations without any notice to the Organization. The United Nations was immediately concerned about the “disappearance” of the staff, and protested strongly the manner of their detention, once discovered, with the Sri Lankan authorities, at many levels. The United Nations has been particularly concerned about suggestions that the two staff members may have been mistreated in the first days of their detention. If these allegations are validated, this would be a violation of Sri Lankan and international law.

The allegations were raised with the Government both orally and in writing, and the United Nations has assisted the two staff members to seek redress through the Sri Lankan legal system.

We call for due process to be swiftly applied. The Government should either notify the Secretary-General of the case and any charges against the two men and request for their immunity as UN staff to be waived, or they should be released.

I mentioned to you earlier that the Secretary-General had raised the issue when he met with the Sri Lankan President on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, shortly after these reports first came in.

The Secretary-General issued a statement earlier this week in which he said he would be contacting the President following the expulsion of the UNICEF staff member and during that conversation the Secretary-General obviously is expected to take up this case and express his serious concerns over their mistreatment. So that’s what I have for you.

We'll see.