Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/sri1holmes052309.html
UN PLANE / COPENHAGEN, May 24, modified May 26 at NGO request -- Nearing the end of UN Secretery General's Ban Ki-moon's 16 hour tour of Sri Lanka, during which twenty reporters were carted in two military helicopters from Colombo to UN-funded interment camps then over the shattered No Fire Zone, a question that arises is why does the UN take the Press with it?
While it should be so that the UN's work and world problems can be covered, some UN officials apparently feel its a quid pro quo for propaganda. Only what they say that casts them in a heroic light should be reported. If they do not like a story, they can shoot the messenger or try.
So it appears to some to be with John Holmes, the UN's erstwhile humanitarian coordinator. On the UN plane from Frankfurt to Sri Lanka, after Ban Ki-moon tpld the Press that Holmes and his Department of Political Affairs chief Lynn Pascoe would brief, clearly on the record, Holmes came back to chat with a photographer. Reporters gathered around and began some Q & A. At no point did Holmes say that it was off the record.
In fact, when Inner City Press asked him about UN envoy Vijay Nambiar's brother having written an op-ed praising Sri Lanka's assault on the Tamil north and the general who led it, Holmes said no comment. This strongly implies that answers that are given are on the record.
Holmes proceeded to make a series of statements that were telling and newsworthy. He expressed his view that Tamils in Sri Lanka long ago became disillusioned with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He said the LTTE or Tamil Tigers were "only supported by the diaspora," whose members barrage him with "a lot of email, I just delete them anyway."
Imagine for a moment a UN humanitarian coordinator saying, Rwanda's Tutsis besiege me with emails so I just delete them.
Imagine this said in front of at least a half dozen journalists. Several or all of them would report it. But Holmes appeared to count on the reporters on the trip to Sri Lanka all sharing his view, about what a burden it is to receive e-mails from members of a group that feels itself under fire.
Along with four other stories, none of which drew open complaint from any other UN official, Inner City Press ran a short piece about Holmes' comments, uploaded well past midnight from the UN-chosen hotel in Colombo. The comment above seemed newsworthy and reflective of an attitude wider-shared in the Secretariat. Holmes is thought to be among the more articulate officials of this UN, often saying things that others in the Ban administration cannot or will not.
Inner City Press chose to leave unreported Holmes' comments about Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Ambassador to the UN, and other comments about the Tamil diaspora. (Click here for Inner City Press' coverage of Holmes first 2009 visit to Sri Lanka)
The next morning in the hotel lobby, another reporter told Inner City Press that Holmes was angry that what he had said had been published, and was expressing this anger to all and sundry, including other journalists whom he correctly thought would do his bidding. While Holmes never said "on background" -- a term of art in journalist and at the UN which Holmes has used in the past -- Inner City Press nevertheless immediately that morning modified the story, excising the part about Holmes deleting Tamils' emails and other things he said. Click here the modified story; the original was replaced on InnerCityPress.com on Saturday before the UN trip to north Sri Lanka.
Hours later, after a Ban Ki-moon speech in an open air World Food Program warehouse in the Manik Farm interment camp for Tamils which the UN funds, Inner City Press approached Holmes with at least some contrition to tell him that the story had been changed. "I won't talk to you anymore," Holmes said preemtively.
"But you never said 'on background'" --
"It wasn't even on background," Holmes said. "It was a casual conversation. It is not serious, it is not professional." Then Holmes walked away, to be flown over the blasted "No Fire" zone where he had already said that no people remained.
Not only was Holmes speaking to the Press on the UN plane just after Ban said Pascoe and Holmes would brief on the record in his stead, Holmes also was or should have been on notice of the Press' understanding when, for example, Inner City Press asked for comment on a UNHCR staff member still jailed by the Sri Lankan government for his mother have rented a room to an alleged LTTE member. (Click here for the story, which Inner City Press told Holmes had been uploaded from the Frankfurt airport while waiting for the UN plane. A UNHCR official approached Inner City Press in Colombo with an answer, but following Holmes, who knows for now if it is on the record.)
Holmes said he hadn't previously heard of the the humanitarian UN system staffer's case -- typical -- but that "if the facts are as you say." Such legalistic constructions, and Holmes' "no comment" to the question about Satish Nambiar, implied that what Holmes said was on the record.
In any event, different understandings of whether a comment is on the record or not are common, particularly at the UN, where almost always a perfunctory apology resolves the matter, and nearly invariably a modification of the underlying articles does. Why is Holmes or this Tamil topic, or Holmes and this Tamil topic, so different?
Inner City Press came to Sri Lanka to cover the recent slew of deaths and the inhuman UN-funded interment camps, not Holmes. In fact, it was advertised as a trip by Ban Ki-moon, with no mention of Holmes. One can cover humanitarian issues without any discretionary access to the emergency relief coordinator.
In public record press conferences, Inner City Press has in the past asked Holmes about such issues as OCHA losing $10 million to Myanmar's Than Shwe regime (and Zimbabwe) due to currency exchange manipulations and OCHA not advocating, at least publicly, for UN system humanitarian staff detained and arrested by the Sri Lankan government. Perhaps Holmes' advocacy on these issues was... off the record. Watch this site.
Footnote: the symbiosis between media and UN was shown 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. Holmes came half way back and stood in the aisle. On the record? Off the record?
To ensure that Holmes' sensitivities wouldn't leave other reporters with fewer quotes, which is the coin of this realm, Inner City Press stayed in the back of the plane, awaiting Ban's appearance to ask about the status of the doctors who in the conflict zone had offered treatment and casualty numbers and are now detained, which Holmes said -- on the record? -- would be raised.
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.
For Holmes, most symbiotic is the British media, one outlet of which was heard musing earlier this month, Holmes says he'd like to come on at 1:15, but do we have any questions for him? Holmes is known to be closely following the British Parliament scandals.
While some in humanitarian circles say that ever since when at the UK government's nomination Holmes entered the UN's Ban administration he really wanted the Department of Political Affairs job, that might explain not only his comments assessing Tamil support for the LTTE in a way a humanitarian coordinator shouldn't but also his sensitivity to actual reporting of what he said without having uttered the required "off the record" or "background." Or, they wonder, does Holmes still have his eye on a future in the UK?
And see, www.innercitypress.com/sri1holmes052309.html
