Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/untrip1may7srilanka052209.html
UN PLANE, May 22, modified May 23 -- Taking off toward Sri Lanka on Friday after a refueling stop in Bahrain, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said that he has been besieged by e-mails from the Tamil diaspora. His subsequent comments, he clarified on Saturday morning, were meant to be "on background."
Holmes and other UN officials, from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon through his chief of staff and envoy Vijay Nambiar to High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay all receive emails beseeching action on Sri Lanka, many of which are copied to Inner City Press. As the shelling of the No Fire zone increased, the tone of the emails grew more shrill, including one which said Ban Ki-moon should be sent to the International Criminal Court for complicity in genocide. That a UN official might delete such a message and subsequent ones perceived to be of that nature is, one supposes, understandable.
Inner City Press asked about the op-ed written by the brother of Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, praising Sri Lankan General Fonseka and his campaign in the North. Holmes declined to comment.
When Holmes was in Sri Lanka in mid 2007, he called it a very dangerous country, in the aftermath of the shooting of a group of Action Contre la Faim aid workers. A government minister called Holmes a terrorist for his comment. This minister was later blown up. He was running a marathon or race and got blown up. What more can we say? Apparently, nothing.
Click here for NGOs' summary of Holmes comments in New York just prior to the trip.
On other matter, Holmes predicted that Ban will go to Myanmar in July, that he'd told that to CNN. Holmes admitted that while in Myanmar, he had been taken to a "model village." Not so in Sri Lanka he said, admitting again that in his first trip he has used government supplied translation. He said that wasn't a problem. But wasn't it?
And see, www.innercitypress.com/untrip1may7srilanka052209.html
