Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/untrip6may1srilanka070109.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- After more than a week of silence by the UN about two of its staff members grabbed up by Sri Lanka's government, on July 1 Inner City Press again asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas about their fate. This time, Ms. Montas had an answer. The UN has "hired a lawyer who has visited" the UN staff, who are "still detained in Colombo." Video here, from Minute 21:15.
The head of the UN Refugee Agency in Sri Lanka Amin Awar issued a strange statement saying in essence that the government is free to detain staff as long as procedures are followed. But despite top UN humanitarian John Holmes' statement that unlike international staff, national staff members of the UN are not immune, the Staff Union disagrees. They criticize Awad's statement, and counter that national staff have immunity within the scope of their work.
Troublingly, sources in Sri Lanka describe to Inner City Press even the torture of UN staff, and of doctors disappeared by the government after remaining in the conflict zone offering treatment and casualty figures. A Red Cross worker who had been in the conflict zone has been killed in Jaffna, where now newspaper editors face death threats.
Is all of this consistent with Ban Ki-moon and Majinda Rajapaksa's Joint Statement? At the UN, answers like the hiring of a lawyer to work on the case of grabbed-up staff are only given if the questions keep being asked. Apparently, the UN would rather the questions stopped.
In fact, lawyers in Sri Lanka who represent those accused of Tamil Tiger sympathies have themselves been labeled as traitors by the country's military. The UN has already shown it cannot protect its own staff in Sri Lanka. Can it even protect the lawyers it hires for its staff? Watch this site.
Footnote: Inner City Press asked outgoing Turkish Ambassador and Security Council president Baki Ilkin if he thought the Council's sessions on Sri Lanka, held in the UN's basement, had helped in any way to protect civilians in Vanni. "There is no gauge," he said, but :"everything the Security Council does or says -- or doesn't do or say -- has an impact." Video here, from Minute 2:33.
In one view, the Council's refusal to put Sri Lanka on its agenda, and relegation of the issue to ill-attended basement session has the impact of emboldening the Rajapaksa government to make its final assault in the Vanni, and to now use UN funds to detain Tamils in camps and grab up UN staff. Everything not done or not said has an effect. Watch this site.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/untrip6may1srilanka070109.html
