Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/untrip2may5srilanka052409.html
ABOARD UN PLANE, May 24 -- After Sri Lanka tried to compare the blown out "No Fire" zone with its barbed wire ringed interment camps for Tamils, and the UN's Ban Ki-moon offered praise and help, many troubling questions remained as the UN plane left Colombo. Is the UN assisting in war crimes?
At the canned press conference in Kandy, after meeting with Rajapaksa brothers who wear red sashes like blood across their chests, Ban's speech said "the Government is doing its utmost, I commend its tremendous efforts."
In the cut-off Q & A session, Ban took back what little criticism the UN had made of the killing of civilians, calling it a bloodbath. "I myself did not mention that the particular word, I want to make that quite clear," he said.
The Press was whisked by minibus from Kandy to the airport. (Inner City Press had asked for an extension of the two day visa given to cover Ban Ki-moon; it was never granted.) Along the route were hundreds of cult-like posters of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Everywhere there flapped Colombo's sword-wielding lion flag, as Tamil children in the Manik Farm IDP camp had been required to hold, along with UN flags while they sang an eerie song about Ban Ki-moon.
Imagine if Serbia had re-taken Kosovo, and invited the UN Secretary General to the retaken Pristina where it made Kosovar children save the Serbian flag.
At the airport the government had arranged another red carpet flanked by white-clad soldiers with machine guns with bayonets leading to the UN plane. Ban Ki-moon was late, having stopped with his entourage for a final dinner with the Rajapaska's.
Inner City Press paced the tarmac, threw questions at entourage members as they belated ran to the plane. The communications director said it could be a while, he would go to the plane to sleep. Vijay Nambiar's colleague confirmed that, yes, Nambiar would be leaving with the UN plane, his week-long clean up job complete. When finally he boarded, Inner City Press joked, welcome back. I haven't been on the UN plane in a while, Nambiar said with a smile.
Inner City Pres went to the front of the VIP terminal, where Sri Lankan functionaries waited with umbrellas in case the skies opened. A UN staffer said it might be a while, Ban was in the terminal doing interviews. When finally he emerged and saw Inner City Press, camera in hand, he asked, "Are you coming back with us?" Yes was the answer, due to denied visa extension, no help from UN.
Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN stopped and asked if Inner City Press had been "able to talk to people." To some degree, yes -- for example, the Sri Lankan civil society member whose application to teach reconciliation in Vavuniya and Mannar has not been acted on. In the camps, the Press could speak to some of those interred, both only under the watchful eye of armed soldiers and other government minders. Some reporters even concluded that it was the UN, more than the Sri Lankan authorities, which tried to dissuade approaches to those behind the barbed wire.
On the plane, just before takeoff from Colombo, Ban stopped and spoke to the assembled Press about the suicide of his former boss in Korea, about the letter and white flowers that he sent. Inner City Press listened -- South Korea in those days was cutting edge in interactive media -- and then asked Mr. Ban, "Did you hear anything about the three doctors?" Ban stopped. Oh yes, I did, he said. I think they will address this issue.
But what about answering the questions: Why doesn't his Joint Statement with the government mention the interred doctors, or press freedom, or even the blocked NGO access to the camps? In an Orwellian construction, it has that "The Government will continue to provide access to humanitarian agencies." Why didn't Ban meet with any in the Tamil opposition or civil society? This UN is prejudiced toward governments, even when some say they turn genocidal. And Ban's UN so desperately wants to be relevant that regimes like Rajapaksa's can call Ban's bluff again and again.
During the flight from Colombo, at first it was said that Ban would brief the gaggle of reporters during the refueling stop in Bahrain. With the lights on and the engines off, a group assembled. But Team Ban, apparently, went another way, summoning a few reporters for one on one interviews for their local markets. Such access can better be linked to positive coverage, they seem to feel. Inner City Press was told that a Ban briefing when the plane lands in Copenhagen is not possible, as Ban has to run straight to a conference, late because of his dinner with the Rajapaksas, on which he took no Press questions. We'll have more on this.
The Rajapaksa regime, fresh from shelling and killed thousands of Tamils, used Ban Ki-moon's visit as propaganda. And Ban did not protest. As was as if, as one observer fearing death told Inner City Press, Ban's UN is so desperate to be able to say that a country wants it, "even a regime with blood on its hands," that it allows the UN "to be turned into a joke."
But perhaps today's UN system is often such a mirthless joke, speeding around what dictatorships still exist in white UNDP four by fours, sucking up to governments and excusing their massacres, even offering to clean up the death sites.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/untrip2may5srilanka052409.html
