Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/bansri8lanka042209.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 22, updated -- With wildly divergent numbers circulating about the numbers of civilians fleeing or dying in northern Sri Lanka, UN envoy Vijay Nambiar is said to have reversed himself overnight and is now expected to brief the Security Council this afternoon, well placed UN sources tell Inner City Press. Even some of Nambiar's colleagues in the heights of the UN expressed surprise to Inner City Press that Nambiar “chose a fight we couldn't win.”
The reference is to push back overnight by the United Kingdom, which after protests in London sent its envoy Des Browne, rejected by Sri Lanka, to the Council in New York. A senior UN official ascribed the UK's belated interest to the protests. Early on, he said, when the UN was speaking internally about helping with an “evacuation,” the UK government wasn't interested, saying that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam would use the movement of civilians to escape and fight another day.
While the UN's various public schedules, including the daily Journal and the updated wide screen televisions in the basement, still do not list any Council briefing this afternoon, a notice went around on Tuesday night that rather than Nambiar, John Holmes' humanitarian deputy Catherine Bragg would do the briefing. Now, high UN officials say, Nambiar is back on. We'll see.
Earlier on Tuesday there will be a press conference by a number of NGOs about the situation in Sri Lanka. Inner City Press will attend and ask questions, and may live-blog the press conference in this space, time permitting.
Update of 10:50 a.m. -- The International Crisis Groups says the conflict will go on even if the LTTE is wiped out. HRW says numbers are hard to verify, but military commanders haven't been told clearly enough they may be held accountable for war crimes. Caritas says it is asking for $2.5 million. Will it be used in detention camps? James Traub, journalist / NGO official, is here but will not speak, at least not on the panel.
Update of 10:57 a.m. -- Operation USA says that the government prohibits NGOs from mentioning or working on sexual violence, and has taken all doctors in the conflict zone off their payroll, so they won't give out numbers. A doctor was shot by a “militant” yesterday.
