On Sri Lanka Murder of 12 Year Old, Ban's UN is Aware, Calls for National Process

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 20 -- As news of the summary execution of a 12 year old boy by the Sri Lankan Army in May 2009 spreads worldwide, Inner City Press on Wednesday asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman about it, citing Ban's “two reports and a third one still ongoing.

  Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky began with a correction, saying that this third report “is an internal task force looking at how recommendations will be carried out in the UN... it's not to do with looking into the actual events in Sri Lanka.”

  Some wonder how the UN can fully assess its inaction in Sri Lanka without taking into account new evidence of war crimes, including the murder of children in the days the UN was playing middleman for surrenders which ended in summary executions.

  Nesirky went on to say “we are aware of the video footage and reports about it,” but he had “no specific comment” beyond Ban's general statement on the “importance of accountability.” 

  He again referred to a “national process,” when it is clear to many that has not and will not happen in the run-up to the UN Human Rights Council session in March. 

  In Sri Lanka, the release of e-mails from Stratfor, the privately owned intelligence company, has sparked a controversy regarding  Reuters' bureau chief there, Bryson Hull.

  One 2010 e-mail depicts Hull promoting his “ace-in-the-hole analyst, Reva Bhalla of Stratfor... a consummate information dealer... we had a very successful relationship during the end of the war in Sri Lanka.”

  Groundviews has been asking Hull to explain the e-mail. (Inner City Press has learned from some Hull reports in the past, for example in 2012 on the Maldives.) Hull has replied, among other things, that Reva Bhalla "was quoted by name in a Reuters story.”

   That would be far better than Reuters' UN bureau, whose chief Louis Charbonneau in 2012 played a leading role in a campaign to try to oust Inner City Press first from the UN Correspondents Association then from the UN as a whole.

   Triggering the campaign was a story Inner City Press wrote about Sri Lanka, war crimes and conflicts of interest -click here for the account of the UK-based Sri Lanka campaign, chaired by Kofi Annan's former communications chief Edward Mortimer. Watch this site.

Sponsored by Oil Firm ENI, UNCA's Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalism Promotes Sri Lanka Ambassador

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 30 -- In the campaign by Reuters, Agence France Press, Voice of America and other board members of the UN Correspondents Association to dis-accredit Inner City Press and slow the growth of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, the arguments have shifted.

  They've gone from stealth complaints and requests to dis-accredit to anonymous posts implying terrorist funding, or now funding by countries' Mission to the UN.

  Neither is true, but the allegation is ironic from UNCA, since even the program of its December 19, 2012 ball -- for which it charged $250 a plate -- lists as funders not only countries but, among others, the Italian oil company ENI, which also purchased the back page of UNCA's 2012 Directory.

  Beyond ENI, full page ads were purchased from UNCA by an Italian eyewear firm I-Velvet ("Italia Independent"), Benetton, Royale Air Maroc, the ginseng cream Sulwhasoo, J.Estina, watchmaker Romanson, and "Royal Gold La Bagnaia," built by Marisa Riffeser of the family owning the newspaper of UNCA's then President.

  So a composite UNCA supporter could grease up with Sulwhasoo, put on the I-Velvete shades and Romanson watch and play golf in Tuscany. Where does the investigative journalism come in?

   Even the awards that UNCA gave out were to media groups which bought full page ads in UNCA's program. The ostensibly beneficiary, UNCA-affiliated Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalism, is also funded by countries' mission and the same Italian oil company.

   Even UN Correspondents Association's faded jewel the "Dag" has been corrupted by the UNCA Executive Committee and its lack of conflict of interest rules.

   In late 2011 and the first half of 2012, UNCA's then-president tried to expel Inner City Press for its reporting on the Sri Lankan Mission's UNCA film screening denying war crimes, after a past financial relationship with -- the renting of one of Pioli's apartments some years ago when he was a UN official to -- Sri Lanka's now Ambassador to the UN, Palitha Kohona.
 
  Click here for the report by the Sri Lanka Campaign, led by former Secretary General Kofi Annan's Director of Communications Edward Mortimer.

  Then in 2012 the UNCA-affiliated Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalism chose as one of its four fellows a journalist from Sri Lanka who conducted laudatory interviews with the same Sri Lankan Ambassador, Kohona. 

  Click as simply two examples here (quoting "Doctor" Kohona that Ban Ki-moon's "internal report will not affect Sri Lanka"), and here (YouTube praise of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon).  

  Again, where does the investigative journalism come in?

 "The Dag" also takes money from the Italian oil firm ENI, and has on its board the Voice of America reporter Margaret Besheer who pushed to expel Inner City Press along with other former and current UNCA Executive Committee members and the past -- and current? - UNCA President.

 These are all pictured in the "Dag" section of UNCA's glassed-in bulletin board , which the UNCA leadership demands to UN Media Accreditation be the only voice on the UN's press floor walls. (ENI, presumably, could post an advertisement.)

 Sometimes it's hard to keep track: does UN Media Accreditation and Department of Public Information work for UNCA's Executive Board -- that is, for Reuters, AFP et al. -- or does UNCA work for the UN's Herve Ladsous and even Ban Ki-moon?

  That's why they call it the UN's Censorship Alliance.

   As a number of UN correspondents, and now some UN diplomats and officials have opined, UNCA's leadership has taken a turn toward the "disgusting." Their response to on the record criticism with anonymous posts alleging terrorist financing is a last straw. Watch this site.

On UN's Sri Lanka Failure, Petrie Hands Report to Ban Ki-moon + 3, Minus Nambiar, Kohona Denial

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 14 -- The long delayed report on the UN's actions and inactions in Sri Lanka in 2009 was given to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by Charles Petrie on Wednesday morning. 

  After an initial Media Alert not permitting independent press coverage of the hand-over, a 7:30 am email clarified that it could be covered. Inner City Press was there, andtook photos, here and here.

  Attending with Ban were his chief of staff Susana Malcorra (who is also studying the UN's failures in responding to or at least communicating to member states about Hurricane Sandy), the chief of Ban's political unit and another staffer.

  Not present was Vijay Nambiar, who was not only Malcorra predecessor but also Ban's envoy to Sri Lanka in 2009. He became embroiled in the so-called White Flag Killings, in which he conveyed to two Tamil Tiger leaders that if they came out, they would be treated in compliance with international humanitarian law. After this assurance, they came out and were immediately killed.

Nambiar earlier this year told Inner City Press that he spoke with, among others, then Sri Lankan foreign secretary Palitha Kohona. 

  Kohona has denied it to Inner City Press; today, Kohona is quoted that it is "'absolute nonsense' to say a 'small country' could intimidate the UN and that his country had worked with senior UN officials."

   Well, yes: Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa goverment "worked with" senior UN officials, including Nambiar and Ban himself. Sri Lanka got Ban and others to accept one of the Generals responsible for the carnage, Shavendra Silva, as a "Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping Operations" to the UN. Ban told Inner City Press that this was a decision of the member states.

  Silva appeared with Kohona at a film screening in the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium, fallout written up by the SLC, here.

On November 13, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: I want to make this request in advance, I've been thinking of the Benazir Bhutto report, and I remember in this, I think it was in this room that the Chair, Mr. [Marzuki] Darusman, gave a press conference, is there some ability to have Q and A either of Mr. Petrie or the Secretary-General on this important report of the UN’s own performance?

Spokesperson Nesirky: That’s being looked into. We are obviously aware of the interest and that’s one reason why it is being made public.

Watch this site.

At UN on Sri Lanka, After Delayed Petrie Report, Now Muddled Launch: Burying Sins at UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 13 -- While the UN has tried to sweep under the carpet its inaction and worse during the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sri Lanka in 2009, the thread they couldn't make go away was the report on the UN's own performance.

  They tried: after it was assigned to outgoing UN official Thoraya Obaid in September 2011, no more was publicly heard about it until Inner City Press repeatedly asked about its status. 

  Then it was belatedly disclosed that Obaid never did the study, that it had been reassigned to another outgoing (and now moonlighting) UN official, Charles Petrie. It was said it would be done in July.

   Last month in October, Inner City Press asked the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when will the "Petrie report be finished? What (three?) other people worked on it? Has anyone in the Secretariat or the SG seen it? Will it be released? When?"

   These questions have yet to be answered. Last week, Inner City Press was told -- not by a source currently working for the UN -- that Charles Petrie would be in New York from November 12, to meet with Ban Ki-moon and present the report to him.

  On November 7, Inner City Press asked senior staff of the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, Gillian Kitley, about the Petrie report on the UN in Sri Lanka. She said she hadn't seen it, and did not respond when asked to ensure that it official be made public.

   But at the beginning of Monday, Petrie was not on Ban's schedule, and Ban's deputy Jan Eliasson is out of town. Nor is Petrie on Ban's schedule for Tuesday. 

  Meanwhile, a copy Petrie calls "penultimate" is today out, of which former Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman Edward Mortimer and Sri Lanka Campaign chairman says "I fear this report will show the UN has not lived up to the standards we expect of it."

   Not only did the UN pull out, and then conceal casualty figures -- the coverup and breakdown was systemic afterward, in terms of messaging in the UN and Ban Ki-moon and his Peacekeeping chief accepting one of the responsible Generals, Shavendra Silva, as a UN Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping. 

  Ban told Inner City Press this was a decision of member states; Ladsous refused to answer any Press question on this or any other topic, protection of civilians or otherwise. Now this. Watch this site.