Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/untrip1may5srilanka052209.html
UN PLANE, BAHRAIN, May 22 -- While for his trip to Sri Lanka UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speak of listening to the "plans and visions" of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, local sources tell Inner City Press there are a number of more concrete places and abuses he should check into.
Why for example are UN vehicles not being allowed into camps the UN paid to build? Where are young men who left the conflict zone being taken, and for what? What are the Rajapaksa's commitments in terms of granting displaced Tamils a right to return in a reasonable period of time and full granting full access both to the camps and former conflict zone?
Even more specifically, what about Tissainayagam, a journalist held without charges for more than a year? What about the long-promised investigation into the killings of newspaper editors and aid workers, from ACF and elsewhere? What about the doctors who stayed in the conflict zone to offer treatment and casualty firgures, and are now in government detention?
What about Bousa prison, where witnesses tell of routine torture of those detained?
What about what's called the government's blacklist of 837 internationals? What about the Memorandum of Understanding now being demanded from NGOs by the government of Sri Lanka, which requires them to provide "all information" to the government?
We could go on and on. But Ban Ki-moon could start with these. But will he start at all? Watch this site.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/untrip1may5srilanka052209.html
