By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 2 – The UN did little during the killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka in 2009. Then under Ban Ki-moon, the UN even accepted a military leader implicated in the mass killing, Shavendra Silva, as a Senior UN Adviser on Peacekeeping. Inner City Press pursued the question and asked Ban why he did it; later Ban had Inner City Press evicted from the UN, where restrictions remain still. Now on March 30, laundered by Ban Ki-moon and the UN, Shavendra Silva has been named Adjutant General of the Sri Lankan Army, photos here. It is an outrage - but one in which the UN has played a shameful part. (There was also Shavendra Silva as a speaker at a "UN screening" of a war crimes denial film, here.) Not only does the UN remain silent on human rights abuses like this year in Cameroon: it actively launders war criminals, and remains silent when they get promotions, accepts their troops as peacekeepers. Last week Inner City Press formally asked the UN Spokesman to describe the UN's vetting and due diligence of the Sri Lanka military figures it is deploying to peacekeeping missions, without response. We'll have more on this.
Now that Sri Lankan president Sirisena has said, No foreign judges, Inner City Press on March 3 asked Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon and now Antonio Guterres, for the new Secretary General's reaction. Video here; UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: the President of Sri Lanka, Mr. Sirisena, has said in Sri Lanka that there will be no foreign judges, no hybrid court. I know this was an issue that the former Secretary-General had kind of a personal interest in, this idea of following up on the 2009 events. What's the response of the UN system to essentially a flat “no” by the President?
Spokesman: The situation remains one that we're following. I think I would encourage you to ask the human rights… our colleagues in the Human Rights Office who are on the lead on this issue.
Spokesman: The situation remains one that we're following. I think I would encourage you to ask the human rights… our colleagues in the Human Rights Office who are on the lead on this issue.
(Of course, the spokesman of the UN Human Rights Office, Rupert Colville, has refused to answer written questions from Inner City Press.)
The UN, which half-admitted systemic failure under Ban Ki-moon while tens of thousands of Tamils were killed in Sri Lanka, has been supporting something called the National Authority for Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses.
But now that the body has been shown to include, among others, a person accused by the UN's own Special Rapporteur of torture, what does the UN do? Nothing, it seems.
The issue was raised again on February 20 in the 66th Session of Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Video here. This came, as it happens, hours after the son in law of just-left UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Siddharth Chatterjee, dodged again on his connection to alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. He wrote: "The fact is that I arrived in Sri Lanka having cut short a specialized combat under water diving course with the Indian Navy on October 16, 1987. The raid at Jaffna University took place on 12 October 1987." But it was after the failed October 12 raid - and after Chatterjee's now specified October 16 arrival - that the alleged reprisals took place. We'll have more on this, including in light of the new human rights self-attestation promulgated in the UN.
On February 14, Inner City Press asked UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about it. He had no answer, and later in the briefing, regarding Ban Ki-moon who has had two relatives indicted for real estate fraud involving the UN, called Inner City Press "obsessive" then an a*hole.
(This same Haq in 2016 cut off Press questions about a protest in Jaffna of Ban Ki-moon's unilateral eviction from the UN of Inner City Press, where it remains restricted as "non-resident correspondent.")
Here's from the February 14 UN transcript, on Sri Lanka:
Inner City Press: I want to ask you about Sri Lanka, and I'll say why. There's a report out by the International Truth and Justice Project run by Yasmin Sooka, who was one of the named panellists. And they've basically said that there's a Sri Lankan body called the National Authority for Victim and Witness Protection, and they've named a member of the body, put on by the Government, who's named in a UN report as having been accused of torture by a Special Rapporteur on Torture. And the reason I'm asking is the UN is apparently providing financial support to this National Authority for Victim and Witness Protection. There's a… a… they've… they've hired a management consultant. And I wanted to know, is the UN, given its previous role in Sri Lanka, aware that it's financially supporting a body that has, in fact, torturers on it? And, if so, what happens to the financial support?
Deputy Spokesman: We'd have to check and see what sort of financial support is being provided. I'm not aware of what support is given to this group and whether that would need to be conditioned on any particular set of circumstances.
Deputy Spokesman: We'd have to check and see what sort of financial support is being provided. I'm not aware of what support is given to this group and whether that would need to be conditioned on any particular set of circumstances.
Haq, after calling Inner City Press an obsessive a*hole, left his office hours later having provided no answer. Here is the report, and here a sample UN system recruitment, showing support.
40,000 dead Tamils, UN failure? Get over it.
