Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1may6srilanka050709.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 7 -- In the face of a “bloodbath on the beach” in Sri Lanka, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “feels that if it can save lives, he will definitely consider” making an invited visit to the country. Inner City Press has learned that during Mr. Ban's little noticed bilateral meeting with Japan's Ambassador Yukio Takasu on May 4, Ban was briefing on the visit to Sri Lank by Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi, and was urged to make his own trip. Click here for Inner City Press' exclusive account of Ban's mysterious dash into the Council while it met in consultations on May 4.
But now Secretariat insiders tell Inner City Press such a trip, for now, is unlikely. Ban has to attend Russia's May 11 debate on the Middle East,they say. And he intends to be in New York for a May 15 meeting with China's deputy foreign minister, so “there is no time,” they've been told. Some question his commitment.
Ban spoke genially to the Press at a World Press Freedom Day event at the residence of French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert on Wednesday night. While wishing to give full off the record treatment to Ban's comment, Inner City Press did ask him about going to Sri Lanka, taking the Press, pushing the country's leadership for real investigations of the deaths of journalists. Perhaps on the record answers will be given.
At Thursday's UN noon briefing, just before publication of this article, Inner City Press asked Ban's Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq to confirm Ban's meeting with Japan's Takasu, and that May 11 and May 15 commitments (with “Chinese diplomats”) make it unlikely Ban will go to Sri Lanka. “Scheduling is a separate issue,” Haq said. “If he can make a difference... then he will go.” Video through here. We include this denial, and emphasize if necessary -- in light of sensitivity the UN Secretariat has shown in the recent past -- that the "too busy" characterization is from senion UN Secretariat staff, anonymous for fear of retaliation, and not from Ban himself.
Haq did confirm Ban's meeting with Takasu and said “we don't provide read outs of meetings with Ambassadors.” Why wasn't the Takasu meeting -- about Sri Lanka -- even put on Ban's public schedule? “It came up all of a sudden when he had a bit of timing.” Timing is everything. Watch this site.And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1may6srilanka050709.html
