Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un3may5srilanka051809.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 18 – As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon prepares to visit Sri Lanka May 22-23 in what some call a victory tour, his top humanitarian coordinator John Holmes acknowledged that in some previous rebuilding in eastern Sri Lanka, groups of people were moved into previously Tamil areas. He specified so-called “high security zones near the port of Trincomalee” as having “issues of that kind.” Video here, from Minute 41:51.
Inner City Press, which has now been invited by the UN to accompany Mr. Ban on his trip, asked Holmes what safeguards the UN has that aid money and debt relief are not diverted into Sri Lanka's war effort or the movement of people on an ethnic basis. “We do our best,” Holmes said. His answer focused on post-Tsunami aid, but Inner City Press is told that there were few to no safeguards that money freed up by debt relief was not devoted to the war in the north.
Inner City Press asked about reports that doctors previously in the “No Fire” zone had been detained by the government for having reported casualty figures. Holmes answered that “I am aware of stories” the doctors were “somehow segregated, I can't confirm them, I believe they may be in the camps.” Video here, from Minute 35:40.
But Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that they have arrested the doctors, charging them with providing false information. Now what will the UN do?
Given Holmes' rosy assumption, since disproved, that the doctors were still in the general IDP camps, one is not sure what weight to give to his and the UN's assumption that no live but wounded civilians remain in the conflict zone. This assumption, as now reported elsewhere in the media, appears based on Sri Lankan's military drone footage shown to the UN. And the clock is ticking.
After Holmes' press conference, Inner City Press sought comment from an NGO long active in northern Sri Lanka. Nimmi Gowrinathan of Operation USA told Inner City Press that
“in the coming weeks the impact on Tamil civilians of the UN's failure to act will be come increasingly clear. The UN should act immediately to protect the lives of physicians currently in military custody and push for a humanitarian intervention to prevent any further loss of life... Reports claim that over 20,000 civilians are in need of urgent medical care.
"Immediate access should be given to medical teams of the ICRC, now waiting just outside of Mullativu. While the longer term issues of reconstruction and rehabilitation should be addressed, urgent attention should be paid to the civilian population that now has no access to proper medical care.”
While UN envoy Vijay Nambiar remains in Sri Lanka, it was not clear Monday what he was doing or raising. Inner City Press asked Deputy UN Spokesperson Marie Okabe if Nambiar was raising the now-confirmed issue of the detained doctors. From the UN's May 18 noon briefing transcript:
Inner City Press: on Mr. Nambiar. Can you say whether while he is there the issue...there are some saying that there are many people that are now injured in the (inaudible) care in what had been called the no fire zone; and that the ICRC has no access. Is this something that...is this in the case there some doctors who used to report on the casualty figures who have gone missing as reported in the Guardian and the Independent. Are these issues, I mean you mentioned he’s talking about the IDPs instead of post-conflict; what about people that are actually at this moment sort of dying without medical care...(interrupted)?
Deputy Spokesperson Okabe: Well, that’s the subject that I think John Holmes is going to come and talk to you about right now.
Inner City Press: Burt can you say whether Mr. Nambiar, I guess I am just wondering... -- John Holmes is not there, Mr. Nambiar is -- is this an issue that the UN is urgently raising with the Government or not?
Deputy Spokesperson Okabe: The Chef de Cabinet’s visit, as we mentioned to you, focuses exactly on the same issues that I just mentioned; which are the United Nations’ and the Secretary-General’s concern. Now, obviously the immediate humanitarian needs on the ground are the utmost priority for all of us.
But what about the doctors? Watch this site – on May 19, Inner City Press has been told by the UN to seek a visa from the Sri Lankan Mission in New York.
