After Cameroon Biya Justice Minister Threatens Opponents With Holocaust No Answer from UN Guterres

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT NYP

UNITED NATIONS Gate, February 4 –After Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years on January 28 had his opponent Maurice Kamto arrested, Inner City Press again asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his spokesmen for their comment and action, if any. This came after Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up on 3 July 2018 after it interviewed Biya's Ambassador about the two men's Budget Committee deals and bannedfrom the UN since - Guterres even tried to get Inner City Press banned from the Park East Synagogue, here. 

Now in Cameroon Biya's Minister Delegate of Justice Momo Jean de Dieu has on camera warned that Biya's opponents "might end up like 'arrogant'Jews whom Hitler put in gas chambers" - his words, video here. Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres, his deputy Amina J. Mohammed, his USG Alison Smale and lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric, "a formal question for immediate answer and confirmation of receipt   Cameroon Biya's Minister Delegate of Justice Momo Jean de Dieu has on camera warned that Biya's opponents "might end up like 'arrogant' Jews whom Hitler put in gas chambers" - his words, video here.      What is the SG's comment and action on this?" Four hours later and counting, nothing. Nothing at all. This from Guterres who hours after skipping a human rights meeting about Venezuela in the UN Security Council intoned, "the efforts of the UN system in countering hate speech and to devise a global plan of action to deepen this essential work. We had, just last Saturday in Park East Synagogue, a very moving testimony from Rabbi Schneier proposing that we should gather Ministers of Education all over the world to make sure that in schools these questions are clearly introduced in the curricula and that students will never be able to deny these facts. Because indeed, countering hate speech is essential to preventing hate crimes." He is not countering. In fact, he tried to have the Press which covers his hypocrisy removed from the Park East Synagogue. Even banned, Inner City Press exclusively reported that inside the UN in a closed door meeting with staff Guterres said that human rights questions to governments are impolite and arrogant. Video here. Maybe that's why the most his Resident Coordinator in Cameroon Allegra Baiocchi can muster, as Biya's slaughters Anglophones after Guterres' envoy Francois Lounceny Fall equated secessionist with extremists is to re-tweet a group that didn't consider Cameroon a top 90 problem in its 2018 World Report, on the proposition that If you say, 'Killing civilians is acceptable, because we’re fighting terrorists,' Then you’d probably make a pretty good terrorist. Was that passive aggressive pseudo-trolling of Paul Biya? To this has the UN been reduced by Guterres.And this, on supposed reform: after the power grab of the Resident Coordinator system from UN Development Programm to Amina J. Mohammed, now coming to Cameroon as UNDP's new "Resident Representative" is a PhD student at Science Po Bordeau, Jean-Luc Stalon. Can you see, FrancAfrique? This is how Guterres' UN works, or doesn't.  On Cameroon here is what Inner City Press has asked in writing to Guterres, his deputy Amina J. Mohammed (in Nigeria), USG Alison Smale, spokesman Farhan Haq and Stephane Dujarric and others: "While your Administration and Office of the Spokesperson have refused to answer a single written question from Inner City Press for fourteen work days, in contravention of conventions USG Smale made to UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye and Spokesman Dujarric made on camera, two formal questions for immediate answer and confirmation of receipt  1) in Cameroon it is reported that opposition figure Maurice Kamto as been arrested, after the 100+ arrests and shootings Inner City Press asked you about earlier today. Please explain how it is legitimate to ban from enter into the UN the media that has been asking about these and other questions, with no hearing or appeal.  On deadline." For sixteen hours, no answer, no acknowledgment of receipt, nothing.  More here.

UN's Murky Approach to Holocaust Events Disclaims Serbia's But Lists It, Israel UNlisted, Smale Silent

By Matthew Russell Lee, Periscope here

UNITED NATIONS, January 26 – In today's UN, Holocaust remembrance is politicized, and the Department of Public Information which makes decisions is not transparent, does not answer Press questions. On January 25 Inner City Press went to cover a Serbia-sponsored event about the Jasenovac extermination camp, complete with a long speech by Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, Periscope here.

While there was a disclaimer sign, a representative of DPI's Holocaust Outreach unit was there. The event was listed (as "invitation only") on DPI's list of events in the UN Visitors Lobby - but an Israeli-mission sponsored event set for January 31 wasn't listed. Questions to DPI chief Alison Smale, on access and complaints by whistleblowers of malfeasance in DPI, have gone unanswered. 

At the UN's January 26 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked, UN video, transcript here: 

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you about an event that took place in the delegates' entrance last night, sponsored by the Serbian Mission.  It was about a… a concentration camp and it's reported that Croatia wrote directly to António Guterres to try to get it cancelled, given the presentation, and I wanted to know, what can you say about that, I guess?  There seems to be a lot of controversy about it, and I did notice… note some staff of the… I guess, the Holocaust Unit of DPI [Department of Public Information] present.  What was the relationship between the UN and the event?  And do you have any comment on the… the event? Deputy Spokesman:  I don't have any comment on the event.  As you know, different Member States can use the building to hold different events, and that is their right. Inner City Press: But maybe it's related, because I guess I want to understand this.  There's… there's a separate story about an Israeli singer, Benayoun, who had sought to… yeah, who had sought to come.  There was a lot of controversy.  Somebody wrote to António Guterres to say, "Don't have him."  Alison Smale wrote back and said, "He's not invited."  Turns out he is coming, but the event that he'll be at, which is sponsored by the Israeli Mission, is not on the UN's schedule of Holocaust events, it says.  So what's the relation… I guess what I'm meaning is, even if these events have nothing to do with the UN, including the ones that have been held elsewhere in the GA Lobby, who decides which… which events get listed on the… on the list of UN Holocaust week events and which are not?  Is that a political decision?  Who decides that? 

Deputy Spokesman:  Well, the United Nations itself, including its Department of Public Information, has a programme of Holocaust events, and those are listed as such.  Of course, Member States are free to organize their own events, but many of them will not be on the UN program.  Those are events organized by Member States. Inner City Press: DPI reviews the events in advance and says this one will be listed on our programme, and this one won't? Deputy Spokesman:  DPI has an office that deals with the remembrance of the Holocaust and they deal specifically with that. Inner City Press:  So they decided that the Serbian one was too controversial?  Or how did it work? Deputy Spokesman:  No, the Serbian one is organized by Member States.  Meetings organized by Member States are separate.  You know, there are meetings that are part of the Holocaust commemoration that's organized by DPI, and then there are other ones that are organized by Member States. Inner City Press:  But there's a sign down in the GA that lists the week's events, and some of them are sponsored by missions.  Do you see what I mean?  It's not like there are UN events and mission events. Deputy Spokesman:  Those would have been agreed to beforehand." So the Serbian event was "agreed beforehand" with the UN, since it is listed, but the Israel event is not? On January 29, US Ambassador Nikki Haley is taking the UN Security Council members down to Washington, including to the Holocaust Museum. We'll have more on this. When UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres goes to the PyeongChang Olympics next month, his real dream is to get an invite to the north, to Pyongyang, UN sources exclusively tell Inner City Press. Having failed on other diplomatic initiatives like Cyprus in his first year atop the UN, Guterres is "desperate" for some high profile drama, the sources say. The UN's acceptance of a "Junior Professional Officer" who is the son of a high official of Kim John Un's Workers Party -- whom Inner City Press in October exclusively identified as Kim Joo Song, here -- was meant to built the connections to get Guterres into the country. But isn't it the US that Kim Jong Un wants to negotiate with? We'll have more on this. When the UN's Committee on Relations with the Host Country met on January 17, the representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea read a three-page statement condemning the US for issuing his Mission to the UN's tax-exempt card in the name "North Korea" and not Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He said, "We presumed it would be only a kind of technical mistake by the U.S. side, and returned the card back to the U.S. mission, while requesting them to correct that serious mistake." The statement, which Inner City Press has exclusively obtained immediately after the meeting (photos here, full PDF of letter via Patreon, here) continued that the U.S. mission replied, "It seems to be a glitch in our database, we'll reach out to our office in DC." That was on December 13, the statement said, continuing: "on 14th December there was an explanation from the U.S. mission informing that, quoted as 'Our DC office has indicated that all country / mission names on OFM credentials for Democratic People's Republic of Korea indicate North Korea which is the conventional short abbreviation. The short name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is North Korea, so the tax card will remain the same." The statement concluded by condemning "such reckless political hostile policy" and demanded an apology. Watch this site. Throughout 2016 New Zealand documentary maker Gaylene Preston and her crew staked out the UN Security Council along with Inner City Press, awaiting the results of the straw polls to elected Ban Ki-moon's sucessor as UN Secretary General. Preston's focus was Helen Clark, the former New Zealand prime minister then in her second term as Administrator of the UN Development Program. Preston would ask Inner City Press after each poll, What about Helen Clark's chances? Suffice it to say Clark never caught fire as a candidate. Inner City Press told Preston, as did many other interviewees in her documentary “My Year with Helen,” that it might be sexism. But it might be power too - including Samantha Power, the US Ambassador who spoke publicly about gender equality and then in secret cast a ballot Discouraging Helen Clark, and praised Antonio Guterres for his energy (yet to be seen). Samantha Power's hypocrisy is called out in Preston's film, in which New Zealand's Ambassador complains that fully four members of the Council claimed to be the single “No Opinion” vote that Clark received. There was a private screening of My Year With Helen on December 4 at NYU's King Juan Carlos Center, attended by a range of UN staff, a New Zealand designer of a website for the country's proposal new flag, and Ban Ki-moon's archivist, among others. After the screening there was a short Q&A session. Inner City Press used that to point out that Guterres has yet to criticize any of the Permanent Five members of the Council who did not block him as the US, France and China blocked Clark, with Russia casting a “No Opinion.” And that Guterres picked a male from among France's three candidates to head UN Peacekeeping which they own, and accepted males from the UK and Russia for “their” top positions. Then over New Zealand wine the talk turned to the new corruption at the UN, which is extensive, and the upcoming dubious Wall Street fundraiser of the UN Correspondents Association, for which some in attendance had been shaken down, as one put it, for $1200.  The UN needed and needs to be shaken up, and hasn't been. But the film is good, and should be screened not in the UN Censorship Alliance but directly in the UN Security Council, on the roll-down movie screen on which failed envoys like Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed are projected. “My Year With Helen” is well worth seeing.

Belated Settlement for Crimes of French SNCF, Other Immunities in Question?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 5 -- From 1941 through 1944 French state-owned railroad company SNCF transported 76,000 people to concentration camps -- over 11,000 of them children -- charging the Nazi-controlled government third class fares although the accommodations were in cattle cars.

Better late than never:

"The United States and France have reached an agreement for substantial compensation in connection with the wrongs suffered by Holocaust victims deported from France.  The centerpiece of the agreement is a $60 million lump sum payment by France to the United States, which will distribute the funds to eligible claimants.  The compensation is based on France’s recognition that Americans, Israelis, and other foreigners who were deported during the Holocaust have not been able to gain access to the French pension program. 

"The signing ceremony will take place on Monday, December 8, 2014 at 11:30 a.m. in the Department of State Treaty Room.  On the U.S. side, the agreement will be signed by Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, the U.S. lead negotiator and the Secretary of State’s Special Adviser on Holocaust Issues.  For France, the agreement will be signed by the lead French negotiator and Ambassador for Human Rights, Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay."

Back on November 16, 2011 Inner City Press reported: 

  Now when SNCF is sued for these crimes against humanity, the company raises the defense of soverign immunity. The logic is that since Nicholas Sarkozy can't be sued by his victims including recent ones from weapons drops in Libya and reprisals in Cote d'Ivoire, neither can SNCF be sued, even by Holocaust survivors.

  Wednesday on Capitol Hill in the Rayburn House Office Building, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs heard from Holocaust survivors, in support of H.R. 1193, the Holocaust Rail Justice Act, which would prevent foreign sovereign immunity from being raised as a defense by the French rail company SNCF in a class action law suit brought against them by Holocaust survivors.

  The Committee heard, this is not the type of situation foreign sovereign immunity was ever meant to apply to. Chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen moved things along, so the Committee got testimony from Leo Bretholz, who survived only by jumping from a SNCF train bound for Auschwitz carrying one thousand other victims. Later he settled in Baltimore.

SNCF train, cattle cars to Auschwitz & impunity not shown

  Bretholz said SNCF was paid by the Nazis "per head and per kilometer." He submitted into the record an invoice SNCF submitted "after the Nazis were gone." He described how families were split up. For the whole trip, SNCF gave "one piece of triangle cheese, one piece of bread and no water."

An elderly woman on crutches told him, "You must do it, if you get out, maybe you can tell the story." He managed to bend the bars of the windows of the cattle car and got out. Of SNCF convoy number 42, only five survived.

For SNCF, he said, "it's all about money." Seventy years is enough, he concluded. Yes, it is. 

  Now in December 2014 we ask, why are other immunities called absolute? We'll have more on this.

Amid War Crimes Records Talk, UN Withheld Evidence in Sri Lanka in 2009, Censors 2011 and Now Again

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 11 -- On Sri Lanka at UN headquarters in New York the disinterest and delegation continue. On November 11 an event was held about "War Crimes Records," primarily about the Holocaust but with Syria, for example, mentioned by Dan Plesch on the panel.

  Plesch asked, if people could collect records in London under bombing, how not in Syria today? Indeed. But consider that the UN itself WITHHELD evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka in 2009.

  As reported by Inner City Press:

After claiming of Sri Lanka that "we don't count bodies," the UN has now involuntarily admitted that the "minimum number of documented civilian casualties since 20 January 2009, as of 7 March 2009 in the conflict area of Mullaitivu Region [is] 9,924 casualties including 2,683 deaths and 7,241 injuries," in a leaked document of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs obtained by Inner City Press. 

  OCHA's top official John Holmes, as well as spokespeople for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have repeatedly denied that the UN has such casualty figures.  Now it appears that unlike in other conflicts from Darfur to Gaza, the UN withheld the Sri Lanka figures, in effect protecting the Sri Lankan government from criticism.

   On February 17, 2009, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas for the UN's estimate of civilian deaths, and whether it was higher or lower than 1200. Ms Montas replied that "we are trying to save people, not count bodies." Video here, from Minute 22:48.

   On March 17, 2009, Inner City Press cited the just-obtained internal OCHA casualty figure of 9,924 including 2,683 deaths to the Ambassador of a European country active with OCHA, asking if Holmes had disclosed this number in the two "classified" briefings on Sri Lanka the Ambassador had mentioned. "Everyone knows the figures are controversial," the Ambassador said, insisting that he not be identified by name or country. "You won't hear these figures from OCHA." But internally, they are in writing.

Jump forward to November 3, 2014: Inner City Pressasked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman about Sri Lanka's allegations about "blank human rights complaint forms." There was no substantive answer; four days later, it was Prince Zeid from Geneva who spoke out.

   And now the Sri Lankan government has predictably shot back, blaming Zeid's statement for what they were already doing: banning the human rights investigators.

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ravinatha Aryasinha has written to Zeid, "This type of action on your part would regrettably constrain constructive engagement which the Government of Sri Lanka has consistently sought to pursue." Right.

  In UN headquarters this is pattern used by the United Nations Correspondents Association under Giampaolo Pioli. 

  When Inner City Press reported as context for Pioli's unilateral decision grant an "UNCA" screening for Sri Lanka's war crimes denial film "Lies Agreed To" that Pioli had rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Aryashinha's counterpart in New York Palitha Kohona, Pioli said take the story off the Internet or he would get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  When Inner City Press complained about this attempt at censorship, by a group that was ostensibly supposed to defend journalists and freedom of the press, these complaints including sent in writing to the private owners of Pioli's listed employers QUOTIDIANO NAZIONALE/LA NAZIONE/Il Resto del Carlino / IL GIORNO, Poligrafici Editoriale S.p.A. via Stefania Dal Rio, and to Voice of America -- 

this was used as the excuse to, yes, try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.  Here is Voice of America's letter, for which it said it had the support of AFP andReuters, which then moved to censor its own anti-Press complaint to the UN, here.

  Writing to QUOTIDIANO NAZIONALE/LA NAZIONE/Il Resto del Carlino / IL GIORNO, Poligrafici Editoriale S.p.A. was said, by Voice of America, to havethese companies "preparing a libel lawsuit" -- never filed. It was only meant to silence and censor. And now Pioli reappears, annointed by two year figure head Pamela Falk, to take the helm again at UNCA, become not the UN Correspondents Association but rather the UN's Censorship Alliance.

   In 2009 it was Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who went on the Rajapaksas' victory tour of the bloodbath on the beach. Some of Inner City Press' coverage is here.

 In 2011 Sri Lanka's denial of war crimes, “Lies Agreed To,” was screened inside the UN, hosted by the then-president of UNCA, become the UN's Censorship Alliance.

On November 3, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about a new development, transcript here:

Inner City Press: In Sri Lanka, a newspaper has reported that the Government is searching people down for having “blank human right complaints forms” to the inquiry of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. And since, obviously, there are people who are now charged with this and on the run, I wanted to know: Can you state from this podium or sometime today, are there even… do such forms even exist? Is there a blank form for this inquiry? And if so--

Spokesman Dujarric: I don't know. You may want to refer that question to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights here.

Inner City Press: Okay. Even if it were to exist, should people be hunted down for having these forms?

Spokesman Dujarric: Obviously, I can't tell you… I don't know of the existence of these forms or whether there is a police action against it. Obviously, it's important that people have the right to cooperate, should they wish, with any UN human rights investigation

The article is easy to find; it is in The Island, which got leaked one of Ban Ki-moon's wan reports on Sri Lanka. But eight hours later, nothing. 

 In the interim, the previous president of UNCA Giampaolo Pioli, who when Inner City Press reported on his screening of Rajapaksa's war crimes denial film and the fact that Pioli previously rented one of his apartments to Palitha Kohona, still Sri Lanka's Ambassador, tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, made a new move.

  Pioli is positioning himself to again head UNCA, posting his name as the only candidate, endorsed by Pamela Falk of CBS who filled in for his for two years. UNCA has not been reformed in any way since its kangaroo proceeding against Inner City Press resulted in death threats.

  Inner City Press submitted requests under the US Freedom of Information Act to Voice of America, whoseMargaret Basheer wrote at the time that the newspaper of UNCA's president -- Pioli -- was preparing to sue Inner City Press for libel for the entirely true report that Pioli rented real estate to Kohona -- pictured below with Pioli and Shavendra Silva.

 It was pure intimidation and big media abuse, an attempt to censor. Inner City Press raised the death threats from Sri Lanka to Pioli's private held newspaper in Italy -- which allows Pioli to, for example, make campaign contributions to politicians he is supposedly covering -- resulting in yet more threats of litigation, attempts to intimidate and censor. There are more more documents obtained under FOIA, and audio clips, most not yet published.

Since then, Inner City Press quit UNCA and co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access. But Ban Ki-moon's UN continues to prop up its UN Censorship Alliance, giving it a big room for free to hold screenings in, setting aside all first questions for it, using it to pretend to be doing a good job on press freedom and such issues as Sri Lanka war crimes. We'll have more on this.

   

At UN, Deal On Rwanda Genocide Description Voted Through 15-0, US Policy UNexplained So Far

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 30, longer form here -- After stand-offs including on how to describe the 1994 Rwanda genocide, on January 30 the Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions resolution was adopted by the UN Security Council, 15-0. 

  The language compromised on is "the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed."

  Sources exclusively told Inner City Press that the United States resisted calling it a genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda, even saying that there is a US policy against referring to it in this way.

   Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN for an explanation. It was said one might be forthcoming after the vote.

  Where would such a US policy be written down? It seemed strange, particularly during a time of Holocaust events at the UN, from one about Hungary to another about Albania.

   On January 29, Inner City Press asked a US Council diplomat, who said spokespeople would be asked. Inner City Press was told to wait for the language to be final, then, for the vote.

  In the Council's January 29 debate, the representative of the DRC spoke about Rwanda and the M23 rebels. Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative replied with a series of questions: was it Rwanda who killed Lumumba? Was Rwanda responsible for Mobutu? Who hosted and failed to separate the genocidaires from Rwanda in 1994?

  This continued on January 30 after the vote.  Rwanda Permanent Representative Gasana said UN Peacekeeping should investigate links between the DRC Army and the FDLR.

  The DRC representative asked to be given specifics about links between his country's army the FARDC and the FDLR militia. The resolution voted on provides:

"Noting with deep concern reports indicating FARDC collaboration with the FDLR at a local level, recalling that the FDLR is a group under United Nations sanctions whose leaders and members inchide perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed, and have continued to promote and commit ethnically based and other killings in Rwanda and in the DRC, and stressing the importance of permanently addressing this threat"

   As Inner City Press exclusively put online last June, some of these links were even specified in the UN Group of Experts report, for example:

"107. The Group interviewed 10 FARDC soldiers in Tongo, in North Kivu, who reported that FARDC and FDLR regularly meet and exchange operational information. These same sources stated that FARDC soldiers supplied ammunition to the FDLR. Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, denied such collaboration, but declared to the Group that FARDC and FDLR do not fight each other."

  Going further back, it is impossible not to note, particularly given the lack of explanation or transparency, that US Permanent Representative Samantha Power began her 2001 article "Bystanders to Genocide" in the Atlantic with this sentence: "In the course of a hundred days in 1994 the Hutu government of Rwanda and its extremist allies very nearly succeeded in exterminating the country's Tutsi minority."

  Given that, why would the US Mission be saying it had a policy of describing the genocide as being against the Tutsi minority? Inner City Press asked again: Since I'm told that the US has said that there is a government position not to say the 1994 genocide was against the Tutsis, can you say what that policy is? Why does it exist? Does it apply to other genocides or atrocities?

 As noted, Inner City Press also has pending with the US State Department a number of requests, including a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the Administration's Atrocities Prevention Board.

  A Rwandan diplomat told Inner City Press these were Hutu killed not because of their ethnicity but because they opposed the genocide against the Tutsi. "This is a precedent," the diplomat said. Watch this site.

   

At UN on Genocide, Burying Sri Lanka Report, Rwanda's French Connection

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, November 7 -- It was a snowy Wednesday evening when the UN held a screening and panel discussion entitled "The Holocaust by Bullets: Uncovering the Reality of Genocide."

  The event was sponsored by the French Mission to the UN; the short but moving films were on Holocaust killings of Jews in Ukraine and of Roma.

  After the first film, UN official Gillian Kitley told the snow-limited audience that the UN's now combined Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect advises Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of development in which mass killing may become possible.

  Inner City Press asked Ms. Kitley, what happened with Sri Lanka in 2008 and 2009, when the UN pulled its workers out of northern Sri Lanka, then concealed and denied casualty figures -- Inner City Press got and published a leaked OCHA count of over 2000 civilians killed in a short period -- and then didn't even call for a ceasefire.

  Ms. Kitley replied, "I understand there's been a very thorough investigation" into the UN's actions and inaction in Sri Lanka during that period, and that she'd be very interested to see it. But what about the public, to try to ensure that the UN does a better job in future cases?

  Inner City Press asked Ms. Kitley to have her Office and Adama Dieng, the Under Secretary General for Genocide Prevention (USG for R2P Ed Luck appears to have rather quietly left for an academic job in San Diego) inquire and urge Ban Ki-moon to make the so-called Petrie report on the UN in Sri Lanka public.

  Ms. Kitley did not answer the plea, and the event moved on. Video here, from Minute 1:03:11.

  Alongside the Holocaust, Rwanda in 1994 was repeatedly mentioned (though France's role in supporting the genocidal government, including in the Security Council where current UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous was then France's Deputy Permanant Representative) -- and Syria was mentioned, by Ms. Kitley.

  Earlier on Wednesday Inner City Press was told by a Sri Lankan diplomat that its close coverage, for example of its recent Universal Periodic Review (#UPRLKA) is not fair, in that it took the richer UK 30 years to deal with its "Irish troubles." We report this in fairness; duly noted. But it is also worth comparing responses to events in Syria and Sri Lanka. We'll have more on this.