On Sri Lanka at UN, Nambiar Said to Back Down to UK, Bloodbath Briefings

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/bansri8lanka042209.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 22, updated -- With wildly divergent numbers circulating about the numbers of civilians fleeing or dying in northern Sri Lanka, UN envoy Vijay Nambiar is said to have reversed himself overnight and is now expected to brief the Security Council this afternoon, well placed UN sources tell Inner City Press. Even some of Nambiar's colleagues in the heights of the UN expressed surprise to Inner City Press that Nambiar “chose a fight we couldn't win.”

The reference is to push back overnight by the United Kingdom, which after protests in London sent its envoy Des Browne, rejected by Sri Lanka, to the Council in New York. A senior UN official ascribed the UK's belated interest to the protests. Early on, he said, when the UN was speaking internally about helping with an “evacuation,” the UK government wasn't interested, saying that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam would use the movement of civilians to escape and fight another day.

While the UN's various public schedules, including the daily Journal and the updated wide screen televisions in the basement, still do not list any Council briefing this afternoon, a notice went around on Tuesday night that rather than Nambiar, John Holmes' humanitarian deputy Catherine Bragg would do the briefing. Now, high UN officials say, Nambiar is back on. We'll see.

Earlier on Tuesday there will be a press conference by a number of NGOs about the situation in Sri Lanka. Inner City Press will attend and ask questions, and may live-blog the press conference in this space, time permitting.

Update of 10:50 a.m. -- The International Crisis Groups says the conflict will go on even if the LTTE is wiped out. HRW says numbers are hard to verify, but military commanders haven't been told clearly enough they may be held accountable for war crimes. Caritas says it is asking for $2.5 million. Will it be used in detention camps? James Traub, journalist / NGO official, is here but will not speak, at least not on the panel.

Update of 10:57 a.m. -- Operation USA says that the government prohibits NGOs from mentioning or working on sexual violence, and has taken all doctors in the conflict zone off their payroll, so they won't give out numbers. A doctor was shot by a “militant” yesterday.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/bansri8lanka042209.html

Sri Lanka Denies UN's Claimed Advocacy for Staff, UK's Browne Said on the Way

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/bansri3lanka041809.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 18 -- As in Sri Lanka the “bloodbath on the beach” progresses, the United Kingdom is proclaiming its own diplomatic push at the UN. Sources tell Inner City Press that Gordon Brown's envoy to Sri Lanka, whom the government rejected, is headed to New York to “to visit the UN to speak both with UN spokespersons, whose public statements have been very much in step with ours, as well as with those who do not share all of our views.”

The latter group includes Security Council veto-wielding members China and Russia, both of which have fought to not have Sri Lanka put on the Council's agenda, and confined the last “informational” briefing by top UN humanitarian John Holmes to the basement of the UN, not the Council chamber or consultation room. Diplomatic protocol being what it is, one would at least expect the Permanent Representatives of the two countries to meet with Mr. Browne and hear him out. Some wonder if it is Des Browne who might finally get the US Obama administration's mass crimes expert Samantha Power involved.

If it is true that the UN through its spokespersons are “in step” with the UK, then the UK is not asking for a cease-fire. Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon if he was making such a call, and he did not. On April 17, Ban's Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq responded to Inner City Press' question if Ban's envoy Vijay Nambiar was asking for a cease-fire by saying that the UN is only asking that heavy weapons not be used.

The UN has also dissembled, it seems, on its advocacy with the Sri Lankan government for its own staff members. On April 13, Inner City Press began asking why the UN had not spoken up about its staff members detained without freedom of movement in the government's camps. Both Haq and then Holmes said that they had been pushing hard with the government.

But now Sri Lankan “Resettlement” Minister Rishad Baduideen has said that the first the government heard from the UN about the issue was on April 15 -- two days after Inner City Press wrote and asked about it.

Then, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator Neil Buhne finally wrote a letter to the government, and his office admitted that 11 UN staff members and their families are being detained in camps in Vavuniya.

Until then, “Minister Baduideen said he had not received a letter from the UN and unless they receive a formal complaint that they cannot look into it, and as and when they do they will discuss it with the military officials.... Meanwhile [the spokesman for] UNCEF director Ann Veneman was quoted by the Inner City Press as saying the UNICEF and UN systems staff visiting the area were in contact with their staff in the camps and that they have been prevented from leaving the camps.”

So the government denies that the UN raised the issue until April 15. Who is to be believed? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/bansri3lanka041809.html

UN Sends Nambiar to Sri Lanka, Quiet Diplomacy and Ships Off the Beach?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
www.innercitypress.com/bansri1lanka041609.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 16, published 11 am, updated 12:20 -- With even the UN now speaking of a “bloodbath on the beach” in Northern Sri Lanka, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has quietly sent his titular chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian diplomat, to the region to try what the UN is calling “quiet diplomacy.” Inner City Press is told by well placed sources in and outside of the UN that at first the Sri Lankan government said no, as they have to proposed UK envoy Des Browne. Then they relented, and Nambiar set out.

At Thursday's UN noon briefing, when Inner City Press asked UN Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq to formally confirm that Mr. Nambiar is the envoy and is in Sri Lanka, Haq confirmed both, video here.

Some in Ban's inner circle wonder if it is wise to send an Indian for the job, given India's large Tamil population and response to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. But perhaps that, along with Nambiar's ties with the Chinese, is what has made Sri Lanka feel comfortable.

Separately, an idea is percolating to send or even rent boats to park just off the beach, so that if the Sri Lankan government undertakes the final offensive many are predicting, even in the UN, at least there are ships for some civilians. That such ideas are circulating in the UN, while Ban's chief of staff heads to Colombo, to many indicate that things are coming to a head.

In the 27 months of the Ban Ki-moon administration, even many of Nambiar's former colleagues in the diplomatic corps have expressed sympathy for him. On paper, he is Ban's chief of staff or chef de cabinet, a powerful position held, under Kofi Annan, by the UK's Mark Malloch Brown. But Ban's real chief of staff is Nambiar's deputy Kim Won-soo. The power lines are constantly evident, for example at a ceremony this year when senior UN official signed their Compacts with Ban and then a dozen got in line to speak to Kim while Nambiar stood to the side.

Could a mission by Nambiar to Sri Lanka rehabilitate his stature in the UN, show what he and not Kim is capable of? As Inner City Press noted with regard to the United States -- click here for video -- the death toll in Sri Lanka may be Barack Obama's and his advisors' “problem from hell.” That's the title of a book by Obama adviser -- and recent Hilary Clinton adversary -- Samantha Power, now on Obama's National Security Council. Her commitment to the principles in the book, given her continued silence, are being called into question by some. The UN, of course, is supposed to stand for and with civilians in harm's way, and with more than quiet diplomacy.

Sri Lanka loudly rejected the envoy named by the UK, Des Browne. In a government statement from Colombo on which Inner City Press yesterday sought comment from the UK Mission to the UN, the rejection of Des Browne is reiterated. Is Nambiar viewed differently? His supporters point out that he has “connections with the Chinese,” which might be helpful.

Nambiar was India's ambassador to China, and speaks fluent Chinese. China has resisted even discussing the deaths in Sri Lanka in the UN Security Council chamber, on the theory that is it a purely internal matter. UK diplomats publicly take a different view, but some question their commitment to stopping the carnage in Sri Lanka. Zimbabwe, like Sri Lanka, played an anti-colonial card when the UK raised its voice. But in that case the UK pushed forward with a draft sanctions resolution.

Here, the UK resists even criticizing Sri Lanka's detention of UN staff, offering justifications such as that perhaps the UN staff are able to continue to carry out their UN work while in detention in the camps.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/bansri1lanka041609.html