UNITED NATIONS, April 29 -- A UN agency produced satellite photographs of damage to the conflict zone in Sri Lanka, but unlike in the Gaza conflict did not release them to the public. The UN Institute for Training and Research has a program known as UNOSAT which produced the attached April 19 photographic report on "Satellite Detected Damages and IDP Shelter Movement in CSZ, Mulattivu District, Sri Lanka." Unlike UNITAR's January 10, 2009 report on Gaza, however, the Sri Lanka report was not released by the UN, but rather was leaked. Click here for a copy.
Inner City Press asked UNITAR director Carlos Lopez on April 29 to explain why his agency did not release the Sri Lanka photos. Mr. Lopez launched into an overview of UNOSAT, and then argued that the Gaza photos were produced for a donors' group, and hence were released. But for whom where the Sri Lanka satellite photos produced, and why weren't they released?
Lopes went on to say that once the Sri Lanka photos were leaked, the agency responded by putting them briefly online. But why weren't the photos released in the first place? As with UN OCHA's casualty counts, why were they withheld and so had to be leaked? We aim to have more on this.
At the same event with Mr. Lopez, the International Organization on Migration's director William Lacy Swing spoke about involving diasporas in post-conflict peace building. Inner City Press asked him how this process works in Sri Lanka, and to confirm or deny that there are IOM staff detained in government IDP camps. Swing said he wasn't sure, he thought there might have been one or two staff members "briefly" detained.
One of Swing's colleagues seated in the audience stated that there are IOM staff members in detention, and clarified that they are still in detention. Why didn't IOM say anything? Perhaps more tellingly, why didn't IOM's director even know he had staff members still detained by a government? Swing noted that he has been on the job only six months -- before that, he was the UN's envoy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- but since these detentions took place this year, one would expect him to have been told about them, and to speak publicly about them. Video here.
Footnote: Inner City Press also asked Swing about the IOM passing out pamphlets in the Czech Republic of the government's offer of one-way tickets to repatriate immigrants and even refugees. Swing said IOM is not involved in forced or even "stimulated" repatriations. But if the payment of money to leave and promise to not come back is not "stimulated," what is it? Spain and Japan, among others, run similar programs.
