[Inner City Press] [Inner City Press] While the International Committee of the Red Cross went public Wednesday in Geneva with the fact that the Sri Lankan government is running interment camps to which Red Cross workers do not have access, in New York the UN’s Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe said that “since the Secretary General’s […]
Back from Sri Lanka, UN’s Holmes Admits NGO Killings and Restrictions Not Raised
[ Inner City Press ] Just back to the United Nations from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s surreal tour of Sri Lanka, Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers if the UN paying for interment camps for Tamils rounded up from throughout northern Sri Lanka compiles with international humanitarian law. Ambassador Sawers, rather than answer, […]
UN in Sri Lanka Admits 400 Killed, No Word from Ban Ki-moon on Visit
[ Inner City Press ] In Colombo, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss has acknowledged that at least 400 civilians were killed over the weekend in northern Sri Lanka. Weiss claimed that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been doing everything possible. But when asked, repeatedly, if he was calling for a cease-fire, Ban Ki-moon did not. Ban […]
On Sri Lanka, UN’s Nambiar Resists Briefing the Council on His “Confidential” Trip: Is a USG Subpoena Needed?
[Inner City Press] Despite having been sent as the UN’s envoy to the “bloodbath on the beach” in Sri Lanka, Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar is now reluctant to give the Security Council even a closed door briefing on the crisis, sources told Inner City Press late Tuesday. One well-placed Council diplomat said […]
UN Sends Nambiar to Sri Lanka, Quiet Diplomacy and Ships Off the Beach?
[Inner City Press] 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.” Some in Ban’s inner circle […]