By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 6 -- When the Asia Society scheduled screenings of Killing Fields of Sri Lanka and the government's response for December 6, it was said that the country's Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona would be present to answer questions.
But in the run-up to the screenings, it was alternately said that Kohona was tied up in meeting at the UN -- hard to believe, given that the only General Assembly meeting of the day, about the Law of the Sea, ended before 6 pm -- or that he canceled not wanting to undercut the release of the Mahinda Rajapaksa commissioned Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report (which has yet to be formally released to the public.)
Since Kohona and his deputy Shavendra Silva were willing to speak at the UN while screening the government response -- as reported here, the screening of Killing Fields never took place in the UN -- the excuse about not undercutting the LLRC seems strange.
Kohona previously bragged that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had seen the government's rebuttal without actually watching Killing Fields - click here for that.
Some wonder if the mounting questions about Kohona's involvement in the so-called white flag killings of surrendering LTTE leaders, arranged involving UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, led to his cancellation.
Meanwhile while Nambiar read out a statement that Ban will only allow senior officials to serve five years in their post, he refused Inner City Press' question about whether this rule applied to him. Later it was said it applies to everyone. Watch this site.
