Ban Ki-moon Advisers Defend Sri Lanka Crimes By Linking Press with LTTE, HRW Silent, CPJ Busy, France Smells Blood?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 -- Amid threatening anonymous telephone calls triggered by a proceeding at the UN against Inner City Press, on June 7 a Sri Lankan journalist asked Inner City Press, "there is wide spread allegation that you have been funded by pro Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam LTTE lobby groups during the last few years. How do you react to that allegation?"

  As Inner City Press was, in part for self-protection, seeking to end the public witch hunt against it by offering a balanced mutual apology, it could not on June 7 answer as directly as now. Instead the Sri Lankan journalist was told, and reported 
 

"I reject these funding allegations which are made by Sinhalese extremists, including in the Sri Lankan government, against anyone who raises the issue of the killing of civilians in May 2009. I am troubled that some in UN SG Ban Ki-moon's administration, who feel Inner City Press' coverage has made Ban look bad, including for accepting General Shavendra Silva as an adviser, are known to have echoed or amplified these Sinhalese extremist claims."

  What does this last line mean? Well, advisers close to Ban Ki-moon now and before he became Secretary General have said, as a defense, that Inner City Press is funded by the LTTE.

  Other UN officials have told Inner City Press that that the allegation of LTTE funding has been bandied around in decision making meetings.

  This is the UN itself, at the highest level, fanning anti press freedom flames.

  On June 3 the largest English langauge newspaper in Sri Lanka reported, "if the allegations against Lee are proven, the UN headquarters will be made out of bounds for him. If the harassment charges are proven he could face a jail term of up to six years." See, http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2012/06/03/new11.asp

 

  After Ban's Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit three times said it would renew Inner City Press accreditation to cover the UN, including in this context, on June 4 it reverse course and said no. What has the response to this been?

  A week ago, Inner City Press wrote to Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the chief editors of Reuters (Stephen Adler) and Bloomberg (Matthew Winkler) and then UNESCO.

   Inner City Press raised to these and others the fact that Inner City Press is being targeted by pro government Sri Lanka media, with stories now using information from the Sri Lankan Mission led by Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona and citing his deputy General Shavendra Silva. The stories also quote a letter and e-mails from the UN Correspondents Association, whose president Giampaolo Pioli accepted money as rent from Kohona and then refused to recuse himself. 

 

   So far, despite an inquiry with HRW's Richard Dicker outside a press conference by outgoing International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, there has been no response at all from Roth and HRW, nor from Adler or Reuters, nor Winkler or Bloomberg.

   Inner City Press wrote to the editor of another UNCA officer, and the only response was to be hauled again in front of UNCA and berated for having dared write to the officer's editor.

  When shown virulent Sri Lanka government media attacks on Inner City Press, the UNCA officer said "I don't care about that." The Reuters bureau chief turned over one such article handed to him, before Inner City Press was told it was summarily "suspended" from UNCA.

   CPJ responded in writing that it is (too) busy; at a recent "protection of journalists" event sponsored by the French Mission at the UN, Inner City Press asked CPJ's director about the disappearance of Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth, without answer.

  The French mission has used "its" representative on UNCA, Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse, to push and vote to expel Inner City Press. Now, do they smell blood?

   Others have said they will look into it, and still others will be asked. Luis Moreno Ocampo, when he spotted one of the Sri Lanka articles, took an interest and opined why "they want you out." What he will do is not yet known.

  A journalist who daily covers not only Sri Lanka but also Sudan, Syria, Western Sahara, the Congo and UN corruption shouldn't need to go to such lengths to be allowed to continue to cover the UN. But this is Ban Ki-moon's UN, seen through the fun house mirror of the UNCA "Pioli's Playhouse." Watch this site.

As Sri Lanka PR Kohona Like UNCA Demands Apology, "Casa Pioli" On Market Against Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 -- While Sri Lankan government media uses a proceeding at the UN against Inner City Press as putting war crimes in the past, on June 8 in the UN's North Lawn building Inner City Press asked Sri Lankan Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona about two articles and one forthcoming.

  Kohona's answer was that the dogs would be called off "if you issue a public apology to me." 

 

  But Inner City Press' reporting that Kohona was involved in luring Tamil surrenderees to their deaths by summary execution is based on facts, including the recollection of the since deceased Marie Colvin.

 

  That Kohona paid money as rent to Giampaolo Pioli, the President of the UN Correspondents Association which has now "suspended" Inner City Press and began a "Board of Examination" with an eye toward total expulsion, has subsequently been admitted by Pioli himself.

   So it is striking that the demands of Kohona and Pioli are identical: a public apology, or else attacks that lead to threatening phone calls from Sinhalese extremists will continue. 

  Kohona may view this as just part of his job for the Rajapaksa government, like getting Pioli to let Sri Lanka screen inside the UN its video responding to UK Channel 4's documentary "Killing Fields of Sri Lanka" -- which was NOT shown in "Pioli's Playhouse" or elsewhere in the UN, due to a celebration for Ban Ki-moon.

 But for the president of a journalists' association to fan anti press freedom flames in order to extract a blanket apology for legitimate reporting on a conflict of interest is more surprising, and troubling.

   And increasingly the usually low (low) profile Pioli is being noticed. Ambassadors who had assumed that the "UNCA versus Inner City Press fight" was, as one of them put it early last week, "Reuters, AFP and Bloomberg as big media fighting a harder working blogger," now marvel at Pioli's deeds, and role.

  This being the UN, some see opportunity in all this, and are starting to inquire into how to pay for a place in what they call Casa Pioli. 

  Apparently, said one at a reception Friday night, if you pay rent to Pioli, he will use his position in UNCA to attack journalists who question your country.

   France, for example, has had some success in Pioli's UNCA, most directly through Timothy Witcher of Agence France Presse, which derives over 40% of its income from "subscriptions" to AFP by government offices. 

 

When the French Mission to the UN was shamed by Inner City Press' report that the Mission was unaware that the Sarkozy Administration had switched its candidate to head UN Peacekeeping from Jerome Bonnafont to Herve Ladsous, they got Witcher of AFP, through Pioli's UNCA, to spend weeks concocting a statement denouncing press use of what other journalists say. 

 

  (AFP was not the source, but this didn't matter. For the record, Witcher says he didn't "draft" the statement, but rather wanted greater punishment such as the lawless "suspension" Pioli meted out on June 8.)

So who wants to pay for space in Casa Pioli? Watch this site.