IDP Expert Beyani Likens Sri Lanka to Cote d'Ivoire, Stayed Away from UN Probe

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- The strange treatment of Sri Lanka at and by the UN was on display on Wednesday in New York.

  The UN's Special Rapporteur on Internally Displaced Persons Mr. Chaloka Beyani gave a press conference. He was immediately asked by a fellow selected to come four months to the UN if he'd praise the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa for relocation of IDPs from the camps set up after the 2009 conflict -- called the "Bloodbath on the Beach" by another UN official -- to land in northern Sri Lanka.

  As Beyani began answered the leading question, Inner City Press left its post covering the UN Security Council and ran through the garage to the Dag Hammarskjold auditorium briefing room. Video here, from Minute 11:36.

  There, Inner City Press asked a follow up question, based on a story in the Washington Post noting that "346 people from 110 families who were last to leave the camp could not return home because their lands are occupied by the military."

  Beyani said he'd heard of it, and that he was concerned about a lack of "durable solutions." He said it was like what he encountered in a country he visited, Cote d'Ivoire -- where IDPs were killed after the government wanted to close down the camps they lived in. Click here for that.

  Beyani acknowledged he had yet to visit Sri Lanka, saying he had not wanted to in order not to get "in the picture" with the government's and the UN's "investigation."

  But what UN investigation? There was a Panel of Experts report, based on which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked first Thoraya Obaid and then, without further announcement until Inner City Press asked, Charles Petrie to probe the UN's own acts and inaction during the Bloodbath on the Beach.

  But that report, which some say is already finished -- Petrie is already heading a Norway funded project in Myanmar -- has yet to be made public, and may never be.

  Beyani said he would like to visit Sri Lanka, and we hope he does. But the strange treatment of Sri Lanka continues in and by the UN.

 
 In the upcoming "Universal Periodic Review" of Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, speakers will get only 72 second each -- the least of any of the countries being reviewed, which have far lower levels of killed civilians than Sri Lanka. Watch this site.

UN Peacekeepers Inaction on IDP Killings in Cote d'Ivoire Due to DPKO Rules?

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24, updated -- In July after UN peacekeepers stood by -- or reportedly helped -- as seven internally displaced people were killed in the Niably IDP camp in Cote d'Ivoire, when Inner City Press asked it was told there would be an investigation.

  But two days later, UN Peacekeeping's top envoy to Cote d'Ivoire Bert Koenders "dismissed allegations that peacekeepers failed in their mandate to protect civilians."

  Inner City Press has continued to ask about it, but UN Peacekeeping chief now refuses to answer any Press questions, saying it is in response to "insulting insinuations." Such as a failure to protect civilians, or to honestly investigate failures?

  On October 24, Inner City Press put the question to the UN's Special Rapporteur on IDPs Mr. Chaloka Beyani, who had visited Cote d'Ivoire, two days before the killings at Niambly as it turns out.

 

Beyani recounted that "the Moroccan peacekeepers were there... By seven AM the camp was surrounded... Youths in their thousands overran the camp, n the presence of the peacekeepers."

  In conducting his own inquiry, Beyani said, "I asked the peacekeepers why they didn't act. They said that they have to take a balance, whether acting would cause more harm. They felt more would have been killed if they had acted with force."

  He continued, "Second, they were manning the entry, they would have been overrun. The commander to make sure preserve lives of men to continue to provide protection."

   So far, it was sounding like something of an Ivorian Srebrenica, at least to some. But then the real reason became clear. Beyani said that the "rules of engagement of UN peacekeeping forces do not allow them open fire civilians if civilians are attacking other civilians."

  These "civilians" killed seven people, but the UN peacekeepers "wouldn't get involved." Beyani said he has heard the same from UN missions in Afghanistan and South Sudan.

  This seems like a major problem, calling into question Koenders "dismiss[ing] allegations that peacekeepers failed in their mandate to protect civilians" and Ladsous' refusing to answer questions.

  Inner City Press went to the October 24 noon briefing and asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky:

 

Inner City Press: at 11 a.m., there was a press conference here by UN Special Rapporteur on IDPs Chaloka Beyani, and I asked him about this incident that happened in Côte d'Ivoire in July in which an IDP camp was burned down and at least seven of its residents were killed. Mr. Beyani said that DPKO [Department of Peacekeeping Operations], not only in Côte d'Ivoire, but elsewhere, has rules of engagement for its peacekeepers that they can’t fire upon civilians, even if civilians are killing other civilians. So I wanted a response, from the UN, if that’s true, and also, he said that there is a UN investigation ongoing which, given Mr. Koenders’ statement dismissing the allegation seems strange, but is there an investigation ongoing, and is it a correct statement of DPKO policy that was given here this morning?

 

Spokesperson: I’ll check, Matthew.

   Six hours later, no answer had yet been given. Is it appropriate for the head of UN Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, to openly refuse to answer Press questions like this? Is the stated policy in place, and is it responsible? Watch this site?

 
Update of October 25: at the following day's noon briefing the UN spokesman read out a statement including that there IS an ongoing investigation of the July events -- will it be made public? -- and denying what the Special Rapporteur said about UN Peacekeeping's rules of engagement. We'd expect to have more on this. In the same noon briefing, it was emphasized that UN Special Rapporteurs are NOT "UN officials."

Shaheed Says UN Too Soft in Malvides, "Backsliding for Radical Islamic Groups"

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- When Ahmed Shaheed came to the UN on Wednesday it was, at least initially, to speak about his mandate of Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

  Inner City Press asked him questions on that -- on the effect of sanctions and Iran's position atop the Non-Aligned Movement -- and then asked Shaheed what the UN should be doing in his native Maldives, where he previously served as foreign minister.

   Shaheed said it would not be appropriate to answer the question during his Iran press conference -- all of the other questions seemed to come from Iranian journalists -- but said he'd be happy to answer afterward.

   Once the press conference ended, Inner City Press asked him, as it asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, what the UN would or should do about for example the recent arrest of the Maldives' former president.

  Shaheed gave the following answer to Inner City Press: "Well, I think the UN should draw certain red lines to what a country can or cannot do. We are party to the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] and other conventions we seem to be backsliding on a number of these things, at the behest of emerging radical Islamic groups."

   He continued, "The UN should play a far more active role. The UN is very discredited as being too soft on whoever is in power. They need to stand up for the principles the UN believes in."

 

This is rare at the UN, a country's former foreign minister saying the UN should be more active in his country, which he says is "backsliding... at the behest of emerging radical Islamic groups."

   In fact, other sources say that some such groups may be seeking to undermine Mr. Shaheed's mandate. But that's another story. Watch this site.

After NYT Places Western Sahara Fighters in Mali, POLISARIO Writes to UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- While the UN helps promote and plan military action to "re-conquer" northern Mali, reporting from there has touched on another conflict long languishing on the UN's agenda: Western Sahara.

 

Today's New York Times reports that "In Timbuktu, Cissé Agaly, a former hotel manager, said 37 new fighters had arrived over the weekend. 'We saw them walking in the market,' he said, adding that they appeared to be from Western Sahara. Similarly, a municipal councilor in Gao, Abderahmane Oumarou Maïga, said about 60 new fighters had arrived in the town, also from Western Sahara and the border regions of Algeria."

  The fewer than 100 fighters the Times links to Western Sahara -- 37 "appeared to be from" there, 60 are asserted to be "from Western Sahara and the border regions of Algeria," with the breakdown unclear -- have given rise to a letter to four UN officials from the representative in New York of the Frente Polisario, Ahmed Boukhari.

   Inner City Press has obtained the communication and publishes it below.

  Writing to UN Under Secretaries General Jeffrey Feltman of the US and Herve Ladsous of France, as well as envoy Christopher Ross, Boukhari states:

 

"Some press reports are trying to implicate 'western Sahara' in the mess taking place in Mali. We see in this a new attempt by Morocco 'local friends' there to create confusion for political motivations and gain. No credible country or person in the world could take this as a serious information. Some media's including the NY Times today have taken this fake information without assessing its credibility. I think that there is a clear objective here to harm Western Sahara people and in the process the international credibility of Polisario whose position is very known on this matter. I am sure that UN will be able to separate what is right and what is wrong regarding information and news coming from that region."

  This confidence that the UN distinguishes between right and wrong information, from Africa or anywhere else, might be misplaced.

  Currently the UN Sanctions Committee on Cote d'Ivoire is alleging Gbagbo supporters are trying to link with groups in Mali; the reporting of UN coordinator Steve Hege on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda has been challenged, including based on his 2009 writings dismissive of the threat posed by the FDLR militia, which once Inner City Press linked to them were taken off the Internet.

  Furthermore, questions have arisen about Herve Ladsous, formerly France's Permanent Representative to the UN including during the Rwanda genocide, now heading UN Peacekeeping and so its mission in Western Sahara.  Ladsous refuses to answer any Press questions, saying on October 22, "Mister I told you already that I would answer your questions when you stop making insulting insinuations about me." Video here, at Minute 26:22.

  But it is not an insinuation to note France's position on Western Sahara and no human rights component in MINURSO, to note that Ladsous was the Deputy Permanent Representative of France, and to expect him to answer questions for example about his views on the peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara.

  Just for comparison, the above-addressed Feltman has answered questions about possible conflicts of interest due to his prior service in the US State Department.

  So what is different about Herve Ladsous? As some now surmise, could his thin-skinned refusal to answer Press questions, and characterization of questions as "insulting insinuations," be indicative of actual conflicts of interest of the type Feltman took questions on and addressed, in their fashion? And might these play out not only in Western Sahara but in Mali? Watch this site.