[ Reuters ][ Jun 17 15:57 GMT ]
By C. Bryson Hull C. Bryson Hull – Wed Jun 17, 10:24 am ET
COLOMBO (Reuters) – The remnants of the Tamil Tigers have vowed to form a government in exile to push their separatist cause, which Sri Lanka on Wednesday called an "hallucination" and another illegal attempt to violate its unitary status.
The decision came less than a month after the Sri Lankan military finally crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 25-year civil war, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared Sri Lanka reunified.
Selvarajah Pathmanathan, the top remaining LTTE leader, in a voice clip e-mailed on Tuesday signed off on the formation of a committee to create a "provisional transnational government of Tamil Eelam to take forward the next phase of the struggle".
Tamil Eelam was the name for the separate state the LTTE fought to create for Sri Lanka's Tamils, and what it had called the areas of northern and eastern Sri Lanka it had ruled until the end of the war.
Reacting to the announcement, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said "imagination will lead to hallucinations" and said the country had stepped up efforts to have Pathmanathan, known as KP, arrested.
"I have carried personally the arrest warrants for KP and handed them over to my counterparts in several countries and I expect the earliest arrest of KP. He will stand trial in the judicial system in our country," Bogollagama told reporters.
Pathmanathan spent most of his career building and operating the LTTE's weapons and smuggling networks, and is wanted by Interpol.
IN HIDING
He is believed to have control over the LTTE's substantial financial assets and is thought to be in hiding somewhere in southeast Asia under one of his many assumed names.
Pathmanathan named a committee, to be led by former LTTE peace negotiator Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, which is expected to form a plan by the end of the year to create the government.
"We call all Tamil people and Tamil organisations to provide this committee their wholehearted support and assistance," Pathmanathan said.
Pathmanathan is the highest-ranking LTTE member believed still alive after most of the leadership including founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran were killed in a cataclysmic final battle.
Rajiva Wijesinha, the head of Sri Lanka's peace secretariat, said the plan was an attempt by the "rump of the LTTE" to keep its control over Tamil politics in Sri Lanka.
"It is an effort by the Tigers to pursue yet another illegal action, and I only hope the world won't react positively," Wijesinha said. "The real problem is it puts pressure on the democratic Tamil parties."
In his announcement, Pathmanathan said the Tamil National Alliance, a grouping of Tamil parties long known as its front, would remain so.
Col. R. Hariharan, a security analyst who was head of military intelligence for India's 1987-1990 peacekeeping mission to Sri Lanka, said the plan was more likely an effort to harness the financial resources the LTTE left all over the world.
"It is more connected with recouping the Tigers assets," he said. "Nobody will recognise it in any case, but some countries might tolerate this kind of thing. There are kinds of ghost governments in existence."
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wrong priorities in Sri Lanka
A MONTH after Sri Lankan forces crushed the last resistance by the separatist Tamil Tigers, the island's conflict has faded from the world's news bulletins. Yet 280,000 Tamil civilians remain in government detention camps, under what are reported to be conditions of privation, while officials screen them - in a process of so far indefinite length - for hidden Tiger fighters and cadres.
Among them, we now learn, are three Australian passport holders of Tamil extraction who were in the combat zone, whether involved with the rebels or just helping relatives is not known. Sri Lanka's high commissioner in Canberra, Senaka Walgampaya, says his government doesn't know who they are or their whereabouts, but airily states they will be subject to the same screening as any other internees.
This is an extraordinary claim, pointing to either neglect of duty by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in making concerns for the safety and wellbeing of our nationals known to Sri Lankan authorities, or Colombo wilfully ignoring Canberra's approaches. Either way, Mr Walgampaya should be summoned to DFAT forthwith and the concerns spelt out to him.
Officials from the Australian High Commission in Colombo are on their way to the Tamil detention camps in Sri Lanka's north, but it is unclear how much access they will get, either to look for the Australians or assess general conditions. International agencies have had only limited opportunities to visit. A shipload of relief supplies sent by Tamils in Britain has been turned away at sea, not even allowed to unload its cargo in Colombo under government supervision. A Canadian MP has been turned back at Colombo airport.
Possibly the Sri Lankan Government thinks the Rudd Government is not really concerned about the plight of Tamil civilians, Australian citizens or otherwise. After all, Australia's deputy navy chief, Rear Admiral David Thomas, was there on Tuesday - to talk about people smuggling. This suggests a government more in fear of a popular media backlash from more boatloads of asylum seekers.
But that prospect will actually be increased if foreign countries don't put pressure on Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to modify his hubristic celebration of victory, and put ethnic reconciliation into practice before Tiger remnants find support for a renewed fight. Openess to scrutiny must be part of this. So far, and suspiciously, Mr Rajapaksa is shutting out third-party observers, while local thugs - men in white vans - brutalise his critics with impunity, the latest victim being a journalists' union leader, Poddala Jayantha
Among them, we now learn, are three Australian passport holders of Tamil extraction who were in the combat zone, whether involved with the rebels or just helping relatives is not known. Sri Lanka's high commissioner in Canberra, Senaka Walgampaya, says his government doesn't know who they are or their whereabouts, but airily states they will be subject to the same screening as any other internees.
This is an extraordinary claim, pointing to either neglect of duty by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in making concerns for the safety and wellbeing of our nationals known to Sri Lankan authorities, or Colombo wilfully ignoring Canberra's approaches. Either way, Mr Walgampaya should be summoned to DFAT forthwith and the concerns spelt out to him.
Officials from the Australian High Commission in Colombo are on their way to the Tamil detention camps in Sri Lanka's north, but it is unclear how much access they will get, either to look for the Australians or assess general conditions. International agencies have had only limited opportunities to visit. A shipload of relief supplies sent by Tamils in Britain has been turned away at sea, not even allowed to unload its cargo in Colombo under government supervision. A Canadian MP has been turned back at Colombo airport.
Possibly the Sri Lankan Government thinks the Rudd Government is not really concerned about the plight of Tamil civilians, Australian citizens or otherwise. After all, Australia's deputy navy chief, Rear Admiral David Thomas, was there on Tuesday - to talk about people smuggling. This suggests a government more in fear of a popular media backlash from more boatloads of asylum seekers.
But that prospect will actually be increased if foreign countries don't put pressure on Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to modify his hubristic celebration of victory, and put ethnic reconciliation into practice before Tiger remnants find support for a renewed fight. Openess to scrutiny must be part of this. So far, and suspiciously, Mr Rajapaksa is shutting out third-party observers, while local thugs - men in white vans - brutalise his critics with impunity, the latest victim being a journalists' union leader, Poddala Jayantha
Fresh claim over tamilcasualties
By Jonathan Miller
A doctor working with injured and displaced Tamils in northern Sri Lanka tells Channel 4 News that there may be as many as 20,000 amputees among those who fled last month's routing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Eyewitnesses interviewed during a week-long undercover investigation for Channel 4 News, told of thousands of civilian deaths as government forces advanced on the Tigers' final stronghold.
The deaths, they said, were the result of government shelling.
The Sri Lankan president and senior government ministers have repeatedly denied causing a single civilian death in what the government had desginated a "no-fire zone."
International aid agencies believe as many as 100,000 civilians may have been trapped inside, under a fierce bombardment.
"I think every day a thousand people were killed," one of the very last to escape the tiny enclave told us. He was referring to the final two weeks of the conflict, during which the Sri Lankan government claimed not to have used heavy artillery.
"There were continuous shelling attacks," said the eyewitness. We have verified his identity as a man in a position of authority, but we are unable to reveal it.
Members of Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority also expressed deep misgivings about the fate of the island's Tamil minority now that the Tamil Tigers have been so decisively defeated. Despite severe restrictions on access to camps for displaced civilians, evidence is emerging of maltreatment, despite a promise made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his "victory speech" to Sri Lanka's parliament.
Speaking in the Tamil language, the president promised equal rights for Tamils and took "personal responsibility" for protecting them.
"Our heroic forces," he said, "have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians." A senior Roman Catholic priest, who has worked with the displaced in the heavily militarised northern town of Vavuniya, said the triumphalism of Sinhalese was "very sad" to witness.
"There is no one to represent the aspirations of the Tamil community," he said. "They have a very uncertain future. It means they will live as a subjugated community, like under a foreign ruler."
One of the few senior members of the Tamil Tigers to have survived, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, its head of international relations, said yesterday that the rebels' struggle for a separate Tamil homeland would now continue from exile.
"The legitimate campaign of the Tamils to realise their right to self-determination has been brutally crushed through military aggression," said a statement, released from an unspecified location. Sri Lankans expressing concerns about the welfare and treatment of Tamil civilians -- or questioning the army's version of its final assault on the Tamil Tigers -- are branded unpatriotic, even traitorous.
Dr Wickramabahu Karunarathne, a left-wing politician and one of the few dissident voices in the Sinhalese community said: "The state media, every day, radio, papers, they classify us as traitors and they are rousing people against us."
Dr Karunaratne was the only interviewee prepared to talk openly on camera without having his face obscured and voice changed. One prominent Sinhalese journalist, Podala Jayantha, who had campaigned for greater media freedom, was abducted and severely beaten by unknown assailants, two weeks ago.
Amnesty International says that since 2006, 16 Sri Lankan journalists have been murdered, 26 assaulted, and many more detained. Foreign journalists have had their movements severely restricted and last month, our own accredited Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh was deported.
Journalists and all independent observers were banned from the no-fire zone, during and after the fighting, so no independent assessments have been made of government claims not to have killed civilians. It has blamed any deaths on the rebels.
Journalists have also been unable to enter the hospital in Vavuniya, where thousands of wounded civilians are being treated. Channel 4 News successfully smuggled a small camera into Vavuniya and interviewed a Tamil doctor there.
"It is most sure that the numbers without limbs are over 20,000. Most of the injuries causing loss of limbs were from shelling," he said. The doctor alleged that conditions in the camps for displaced people around Vavuniya, are poor and that malnutrition and disease are rife.
"We were all gathered together recently by the government and we were told that if we told the figures of the sick and why people are dying to the foreign NGOs that we will be killed for doing this."
Response from the Sri Lanka government
http://www.channel4.com/news/media/2009/06/day17/srilanka_response_x.jpg
A doctor working with injured and displaced Tamils in northern Sri Lanka tells Channel 4 News that there may be as many as 20,000 amputees among those who fled last month's routing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Eyewitnesses interviewed during a week-long undercover investigation for Channel 4 News, told of thousands of civilian deaths as government forces advanced on the Tigers' final stronghold.
The deaths, they said, were the result of government shelling.
The Sri Lankan president and senior government ministers have repeatedly denied causing a single civilian death in what the government had desginated a "no-fire zone."
International aid agencies believe as many as 100,000 civilians may have been trapped inside, under a fierce bombardment.
"I think every day a thousand people were killed," one of the very last to escape the tiny enclave told us. He was referring to the final two weeks of the conflict, during which the Sri Lankan government claimed not to have used heavy artillery.
"There were continuous shelling attacks," said the eyewitness. We have verified his identity as a man in a position of authority, but we are unable to reveal it.
Members of Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority also expressed deep misgivings about the fate of the island's Tamil minority now that the Tamil Tigers have been so decisively defeated. Despite severe restrictions on access to camps for displaced civilians, evidence is emerging of maltreatment, despite a promise made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his "victory speech" to Sri Lanka's parliament.
Speaking in the Tamil language, the president promised equal rights for Tamils and took "personal responsibility" for protecting them.
"Our heroic forces," he said, "have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians." A senior Roman Catholic priest, who has worked with the displaced in the heavily militarised northern town of Vavuniya, said the triumphalism of Sinhalese was "very sad" to witness.
"There is no one to represent the aspirations of the Tamil community," he said. "They have a very uncertain future. It means they will live as a subjugated community, like under a foreign ruler."
One of the few senior members of the Tamil Tigers to have survived, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, its head of international relations, said yesterday that the rebels' struggle for a separate Tamil homeland would now continue from exile.
"The legitimate campaign of the Tamils to realise their right to self-determination has been brutally crushed through military aggression," said a statement, released from an unspecified location. Sri Lankans expressing concerns about the welfare and treatment of Tamil civilians -- or questioning the army's version of its final assault on the Tamil Tigers -- are branded unpatriotic, even traitorous.
Dr Wickramabahu Karunarathne, a left-wing politician and one of the few dissident voices in the Sinhalese community said: "The state media, every day, radio, papers, they classify us as traitors and they are rousing people against us."
Dr Karunaratne was the only interviewee prepared to talk openly on camera without having his face obscured and voice changed. One prominent Sinhalese journalist, Podala Jayantha, who had campaigned for greater media freedom, was abducted and severely beaten by unknown assailants, two weeks ago.
Amnesty International says that since 2006, 16 Sri Lankan journalists have been murdered, 26 assaulted, and many more detained. Foreign journalists have had their movements severely restricted and last month, our own accredited Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh was deported.
Journalists and all independent observers were banned from the no-fire zone, during and after the fighting, so no independent assessments have been made of government claims not to have killed civilians. It has blamed any deaths on the rebels.
Journalists have also been unable to enter the hospital in Vavuniya, where thousands of wounded civilians are being treated. Channel 4 News successfully smuggled a small camera into Vavuniya and interviewed a Tamil doctor there.
"It is most sure that the numbers without limbs are over 20,000. Most of the injuries causing loss of limbs were from shelling," he said. The doctor alleged that conditions in the camps for displaced people around Vavuniya, are poor and that malnutrition and disease are rife.
"We were all gathered together recently by the government and we were told that if we told the figures of the sick and why people are dying to the foreign NGOs that we will be killed for doing this."
Response from the Sri Lanka government
http://www.channel4.com/news/media/2009/06/day17/srilanka_response_x.jpg
Sri Lanka to get $ 2.5 B IMF loan
[ Daily Mirror ]
Sri Lanka is expected to receive a US $ 2.5 billion loan from the International Monitory Fund (IMF) this month, a top Central Bank official told Daily Mirror on condition of anonymity.
The loan is more than the US $ 1.9 B that Sri Lanka had sought from the IMF, the official added, although there was no official confirmation from the IMF yet.
A Reuters report, meanwhile, said Sri Lankan shares rose on Monday to a new nine-month high, led by foreign buying of blue chips on an expected IMF loan approval and continued local purchases of plantation and hotel shares.
The rupee closed flat as a state bank bought dollars. The Colombo All-Share Price Index rose 1.4 per cent or 31.50 points to 2286.12, its highest close since Sept 16.
“It was a very active market,” said Shivantha Meepage, a research analyst at Acuity Stockbrokers. “There is high hope of Sri Lanka getting the IMF loan soon. Foreigners bought blue chips, while retail investors bought plantation and hotel shares.”
Analysts say foreign funds have been slow to come to the market, which has been driven higher by retail buyers on positive sentiments since the war ended on May 18.
High oil prices, which go along with synthetic rubber prices, and high tea prices had pushed up plantation shares, analysts said. Oil eased to around $71 a barrel on Monday, retreating from a near eight-month high last week.
Sri Lanka’s average total tea price has jumped around 22 per cent to 342 rupees in May, from January on high global demand. The bourse has risen around 20 per cent since the government declared victory in the 25-year war and is up 52.1 per cent so far this year on post-war optimism.
Sri Lanka is expected to receive a US $ 2.5 billion loan from the International Monitory Fund (IMF) this month, a top Central Bank official told Daily Mirror on condition of anonymity.
The loan is more than the US $ 1.9 B that Sri Lanka had sought from the IMF, the official added, although there was no official confirmation from the IMF yet.
A Reuters report, meanwhile, said Sri Lankan shares rose on Monday to a new nine-month high, led by foreign buying of blue chips on an expected IMF loan approval and continued local purchases of plantation and hotel shares.
The rupee closed flat as a state bank bought dollars. The Colombo All-Share Price Index rose 1.4 per cent or 31.50 points to 2286.12, its highest close since Sept 16.
“It was a very active market,” said Shivantha Meepage, a research analyst at Acuity Stockbrokers. “There is high hope of Sri Lanka getting the IMF loan soon. Foreigners bought blue chips, while retail investors bought plantation and hotel shares.”
Analysts say foreign funds have been slow to come to the market, which has been driven higher by retail buyers on positive sentiments since the war ended on May 18.
High oil prices, which go along with synthetic rubber prices, and high tea prices had pushed up plantation shares, analysts said. Oil eased to around $71 a barrel on Monday, retreating from a near eight-month high last week.
Sri Lanka’s average total tea price has jumped around 22 per cent to 342 rupees in May, from January on high global demand. The bourse has risen around 20 per cent since the government declared victory in the 25-year war and is up 52.1 per cent so far this year on post-war optimism.
Search goes on for Aussies in Sri Lanka
AAP June 17, 2009, 6:30 pm
Australia is continuing the search for three NSW residents thought to be in refugee camps in northern Sri Lanka, where Tamils are being kept following the end of the civil war.
Human rights groups have labelled the camps a disgrace, urging Sri Lanka to free the 300,000 displaced people being held there.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith put Sri Lanka on notice that it would be judged according to how it dealt with those in the camps.
"We think the Sri Lankan government and the Sri Lankan authorities will now be judged on two things - how they manage and deal with the vast number of people in the displaced camps," he told reporters.
"And ... how they move to a reform program that enables all of the Sri Lankan community to feel that they have a share in a democracy in Sri Lanka."
About 300,000 people are being held in the government-run camps following Colombo's defeat of the Tamil Tigers' long-running rebel campaign.
The government is keeping people in the camps until they determine whether they are members of the Tamil Tigers.
The three Australians - two women aged 26 and 29, and a 62-year-old man - believed to be in the camps are all from NSW.
Mr Smith said there was nothing to suggest they weren't safe.
"We currently have officials in the north of Sri Lanka to seek to locate the whereabouts of three Australian citizens who we believe are in one of the displaced persons camps," he said.
"We don't have any information that would cause us to believe that the three aren't safe.
"It's just we haven't been able to locate them, either through the UNHCR ... who are working in the displaced camps, nor have we been able to locate them through Sri Lankan authorities, but we are working very hard to do that."
The Tamil community in Australia is continuing to pressure Canberra to speak out about human rights in Sri Lanka.
It held a forum at Parliament House on Wednesday where community leaders spoke of the plight of the Tamils.
John Dowd, president of the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists, told AAP the federal government needed to do much more to draw attention to the problems in Sri Lanka.
"They should be talking out volubly so that the rest of the world knows that Australia is concerned," he said.
"Its approach has been far too muted. The Australian government has conveniently not made as much of a fuss as it ought."
Paediatrician John Whitehall, an associate professor of public health at James Cook University, said it was a euphemism to call those in the camps displaced people.
"They are inmates of concentration camps and history has few precedents for incarcerating all the people after a civil war indefinitely and isolating them the way that they have," Dr Whitehall said
Australia is continuing the search for three NSW residents thought to be in refugee camps in northern Sri Lanka, where Tamils are being kept following the end of the civil war.
Human rights groups have labelled the camps a disgrace, urging Sri Lanka to free the 300,000 displaced people being held there.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith put Sri Lanka on notice that it would be judged according to how it dealt with those in the camps.
"We think the Sri Lankan government and the Sri Lankan authorities will now be judged on two things - how they manage and deal with the vast number of people in the displaced camps," he told reporters.
"And ... how they move to a reform program that enables all of the Sri Lankan community to feel that they have a share in a democracy in Sri Lanka."
About 300,000 people are being held in the government-run camps following Colombo's defeat of the Tamil Tigers' long-running rebel campaign.
The government is keeping people in the camps until they determine whether they are members of the Tamil Tigers.
The three Australians - two women aged 26 and 29, and a 62-year-old man - believed to be in the camps are all from NSW.
Mr Smith said there was nothing to suggest they weren't safe.
"We currently have officials in the north of Sri Lanka to seek to locate the whereabouts of three Australian citizens who we believe are in one of the displaced persons camps," he said.
"We don't have any information that would cause us to believe that the three aren't safe.
"It's just we haven't been able to locate them, either through the UNHCR ... who are working in the displaced camps, nor have we been able to locate them through Sri Lankan authorities, but we are working very hard to do that."
The Tamil community in Australia is continuing to pressure Canberra to speak out about human rights in Sri Lanka.
It held a forum at Parliament House on Wednesday where community leaders spoke of the plight of the Tamils.
John Dowd, president of the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists, told AAP the federal government needed to do much more to draw attention to the problems in Sri Lanka.
"They should be talking out volubly so that the rest of the world knows that Australia is concerned," he said.
"Its approach has been far too muted. The Australian government has conveniently not made as much of a fuss as it ought."
Paediatrician John Whitehall, an associate professor of public health at James Cook University, said it was a euphemism to call those in the camps displaced people.
"They are inmates of concentration camps and history has few precedents for incarcerating all the people after a civil war indefinitely and isolating them the way that they have," Dr Whitehall said
Tamil Tiger rebels' chance to keep the nationalist dream alive
From The Times
Catherine Philp and James Bishop
Provisional transnational government is not the snappiest of phrases. But its vagueness, and the emphasis on the global Tamil network, is exactly what the handful of surviving Tiger leaders are aiming for as they struggle to work out how best to resurrect their bloodied, beaten cause.
For weeks Tamils around the world have waited for word from their leaders-in-exile about what would happen next. Until Selvarasa Pathmanathan confirmed that the Tigers’ supreme leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was indeed dead, many in the diaspora refused to believe it.
Mr Pathmanathan’s pronouncement is the best chance they now have of keeping the Tamil nationalist dream alive. About half the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora live in Canada — 400,000 — and in Britain, where they number 300,000. There are also smaller but vocal communities in Norway and Germany.
In Parliament Square, where British Tamils have been staging a protest against the Sri Lankan Government since April, there was a cautious welcome for Mr Pathmanathan’s call.
Related Links
Tamil Tigers say struggle continues from exile
“It’s definitely progress,” Prem Hariendran, a student at the University of Portsmouth, said. “No one is listening to our rallies but if we have a provisional government people should listen.”
With an indicted arms dealer at its head, that is questionable. Sri Lanka has fended off much international criticism of its conduct during the military offensive by insisting on its right to wipe out a home-based terrorist force. Many foreign governments have been reluctant to confront Colombo over its conduct, given their own battles with terrorists.
None of which is any consolation to the thousands of Tamil civilians languishing in camps. This week Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, added his voice to the growing international chorus, warning Sri Lanka that lasting peace cannot be achieved without reconciliation. Sri Lanka’s problems, he said, were “larger than the LTTE” and Tamils still nurse bitter grievances.
Mr Hariendran is a good example. “We don’t just want a government abroad, we want one in Sri Lanka,” he said. “The only solution we will accept is a separate country for ourselves.”
Catherine Philp and James Bishop
Provisional transnational government is not the snappiest of phrases. But its vagueness, and the emphasis on the global Tamil network, is exactly what the handful of surviving Tiger leaders are aiming for as they struggle to work out how best to resurrect their bloodied, beaten cause.
For weeks Tamils around the world have waited for word from their leaders-in-exile about what would happen next. Until Selvarasa Pathmanathan confirmed that the Tigers’ supreme leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was indeed dead, many in the diaspora refused to believe it.
Mr Pathmanathan’s pronouncement is the best chance they now have of keeping the Tamil nationalist dream alive. About half the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora live in Canada — 400,000 — and in Britain, where they number 300,000. There are also smaller but vocal communities in Norway and Germany.
In Parliament Square, where British Tamils have been staging a protest against the Sri Lankan Government since April, there was a cautious welcome for Mr Pathmanathan’s call.
Related Links
Tamil Tigers say struggle continues from exile
“It’s definitely progress,” Prem Hariendran, a student at the University of Portsmouth, said. “No one is listening to our rallies but if we have a provisional government people should listen.”
With an indicted arms dealer at its head, that is questionable. Sri Lanka has fended off much international criticism of its conduct during the military offensive by insisting on its right to wipe out a home-based terrorist force. Many foreign governments have been reluctant to confront Colombo over its conduct, given their own battles with terrorists.
None of which is any consolation to the thousands of Tamil civilians languishing in camps. This week Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, added his voice to the growing international chorus, warning Sri Lanka that lasting peace cannot be achieved without reconciliation. Sri Lanka’s problems, he said, were “larger than the LTTE” and Tamils still nurse bitter grievances.
Mr Hariendran is a good example. “We don’t just want a government abroad, we want one in Sri Lanka,” he said. “The only solution we will accept is a separate country for ourselves.”
Leaders of SCO members,observers begin annual summit in Yekaterinburg
[ Xinhua ][ Jun 16 10:51 GMT ]
Special Report: Hu Attends SCO, BRIC Meetings
YEKATERINBURG, Russia, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries and observer nations began their annual summit here on Tuesday to discuss such issues as the global financial crisis and regional security.
Chinese President Hu Jintao attends the small-sized group meeting of
the leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states
and observers in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on June 16, 2009.
(Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)
In his opening speech at the summit, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the SCO would develop tools to overcome the current global financial crisis.
He proposed a special experts' meeting to tackle the crisis, which he said would be attended by representatives of banks and other financial institutions.
The president said that the SCO leaders would not only consider ways to overcome the financial crisis, but would also consider building the basis for future cooperation.
Sri Lanka and Belarus have been accepted by the SCO as dialogue partners, Medeveve said.
The summit is attended by heads of state from SCO member countries -- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and leaders from SCO observer nations -- Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran.
Also present at the meeting are Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, a guest country of the SCO, and representatives of the United Nations and some other regional and international organizations.
The SCO, a regional organization, was founded in Shanghai in 2001
Special Report: Hu Attends SCO, BRIC Meetings
YEKATERINBURG, Russia, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries and observer nations began their annual summit here on Tuesday to discuss such issues as the global financial crisis and regional security.
Chinese President Hu Jintao attends the small-sized group meeting of
the leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states
and observers in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on June 16, 2009.
(Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)
In his opening speech at the summit, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the SCO would develop tools to overcome the current global financial crisis.
He proposed a special experts' meeting to tackle the crisis, which he said would be attended by representatives of banks and other financial institutions.
The president said that the SCO leaders would not only consider ways to overcome the financial crisis, but would also consider building the basis for future cooperation.
Sri Lanka and Belarus have been accepted by the SCO as dialogue partners, Medeveve said.
The summit is attended by heads of state from SCO member countries -- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and leaders from SCO observer nations -- Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran.
Also present at the meeting are Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, a guest country of the SCO, and representatives of the United Nations and some other regional and international organizations.
The SCO, a regional organization, was founded in Shanghai in 2001
As UN's Georgia Mission Faces Russian Axe, Selective Sovereignty
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, June 15, updated post-veto below -- Amid dark talk of a Russian veto threat, Monday in the Security Council the UN's Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) faces cancellation or at most a mere two week reprieve, Western Council diplomats tell Inner City Press. Georgian diplomats, who are not on the Security Council but pace the hallways outside, seemed resigned that any resolution containing a reference to their country's territorial integrity and continued claim over Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be vetoed by Russia.
On June 12, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert about the status of negotiations about the Georgia Mission, given French president Sarkozy's loud diplomacy last August to ostensibly solve the problem. We are working on it, Ripert said. The German mission said work would continue over the weekend. But on Monday, Western Council diplomats told the Press that they might not be able to get even a two week roll over. "Russia is playing hard ball," one said. The Georgian diplomat nodded wanly.
Russia's position is that its recognition of the unilateral declaration of independence by South Ossetia and Abkhazia rendered moot much of the so-called Sarkozy agreements. Now, many predict that South Ossetia will simply be incorporated into Russia. Abkhazia, on the other hand, seems to be aiming for more independence, putting out a call for its diaspora in Turkey and elsewhere to return and "build the nation."
Speaking of nations and wanna-be nations, it is hard not to notice that Russia, which supported Sri Lanka's position that the Tamil "separatists" in northern Sri Lanka could be attacked along with civilians without any formal Security Council meeting, now enforces the separatist rights of Abkhaz and South Ossetians. Russia's argues is that these people were attacked. And the Tamils weren't?
At UN, Russia's Churkin under UK Sawers' watchful eye
At 10:38 a.m. outside the Council, a Georgia diplomat shook his head and told Inner City Press, "It's either short lived or its dead." Watch this space for updates.
Update of 12:53 p.m. -- Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has made the veto threat public. First he spoke with the Russian press -- "eight minutes straight without taking a breath," one non-Russian speaking reporter described it -- then in English at the stakeout, for UN TV. He said that even on June 12, the "Friends of Georgia" indicated they would look into what to call the mission, for purposes of a rollover. But now, Churkin said, they've put in blue a resolution which includes the name Georgia and pre-conflict Resolution 1808. Russia had said it would vote no, and has counter offered a one month rollover with no reference to Georgia or its territorial integrity. A vote is scheduled for 5 p.m.. They are playing chicken: who will blink first?
Inner City Press asked Churkin to distinguish the UNMIK mission in Kosovo, the extensions of which refer to Resolution 1244 (1999) and Russia's insistence in dropping any reference to Resolution 1808 (2008 -- April). Churkin, choosing his words careful, said among other things that Kosovo is still governed by 1244, while this is not the case in Abkhazia, given the different format of peacekeeping. Video through here. Like we said: selective sovereignty, on both sides...
Update of 5:45 p.m. -- the Council has consulted, now reportedly waiting for China to get instructions. A Western diplomat tells Inner City Press that it could be over by 6 p.m.. By over he means, the end of the mission.
Inner City Press asks, what would happened with envoy Verbecke? Back to Lebanon? Or is he... a man without a mission? Watch this space.
Update of 6:10 p.m. -- the members are in the Chamber, and Inner City Press in the cheap seats filing this report. Russia's Churkin is speaking before the vote, against "old terms in documents." Veto seems assured.
Update of 6:13 p.m. -- Churkin says the Westernerns were "chasing political chimera." A word straight out of Baudelaire, rarely heard these days even at the UN. "Our partners preferred poison to medicine" -- Russia "cannot allow its adoptions."
Update of 6:17 p.m. -- Russia votes no, alone. Then four abstentions, including China, Libya and Vietnam. Ten in favor. Not adopted, based on the negative vote of a permanent member. Now Ripert of France is speaking, a counter-telling of the run up to the veto.
Update of 6:21 p.m. -- Ripert says there are areas of hatred still remaining, France regrets this Russian veto and expresses its support for Georgia's territorial integrity in its internationally recognized borders. Now Mr. La of China says "we should have made further efforts" with six hours to go. China urges the Group of Friends to arrive at a compromise plan, to show "maximum flexibility."
Update of 6:25 p.m. -- the US' Rosemary DiCarlo takes the floor, expressing regret. We may now need to consider measures to deal with a Georgia without a UN presence. She says, "Abkhazia, Georgia" and thanks Johan Verbecke for his service. The man without a mission...
Update of 6:28 p.m. -- Vietnam says it abstained to allow negotiations. The UK's Deputy Permanent Representative says he "regrets' Russia's decision. He says the Abkhaz want the mission to stay, only Russia didn't.
Update of 6:32 p.m. -- Japan's Amb. Takasu speaks of humanitarian issues, and "disappointment." There was no reason, he says, to have dropped the reference to Resolution 1808. Croatia follows suit. Uganda calls UN presence "on the ground... vital."
Update of 6:40 p.m. -- Costa Rica's Urbina speaks of the "Grupos de Amigos." Mexico's Heller also laments the end of the Mission.
Update of 6:47 p.m. -- Libya's Deputy has that any activity on behalf of UN must have the agreement of "all parties of the United Nations." So, my delegation abstained on the vote, he says.
Update of 6:49 p.m. -- Burkina Faso says "malgres tout," his delegation calls on all parties to try peaceful response. And now Turkey, the last member after the vote. Turkey co-sponsored the attempted roll over, that Russia vetoed.
Update of 6:51 p.m. -- now Georgia's ambassador speaks, that a single member has killed the mission. He refers to "Russia's invasion last summer." The occupied region of Georgia is the phrase he uses. He says without UNOMIG there will be less objective information. It is evidence that Russia does not wish to have evidence, he says. Sound like Sri Lanka.... Expect Russia to reply.
Update of 6:56 p.m. -- here comes Churkin, using his right of reply. For many years now, we were very patient, in listening to Georgia. Abkhaz representatives were not given an opportunity to tell the Council their position. I could be critical of the statement of the Georgia representative, there is not enough time.
But he takes on two or three colleagues. Contrary first the French -- Churkin says all that was at issued today was a draft, on a technical rollover. Then against two unnamed members -- no one mentioned Georgia's aggression, he says. At 7:02, that's it -- to the stake out!
Update of 7:50 p.m. -- And after the veto and the abstentions, the doomed resolution's proponents took to the stakeout microphone. Absent, it seemed, was Turkey. Inner City Press asked the UK Deputy Permanent representative for the basis of his statement that the Abkhaz favored the continuation of the mission. He said it was UK sources there. But did they oppose inclusion of a reference to resolution 1808 in the resolution? In the ultimate big resolution, yes they did oppose, was the answer. The implication was that the Abkhaz could have lived with 1808 in the roll-over resolution that Russia vetoed.
Inner City Press put the question to Russia's Churkin, who said that Russia is in touch with the Abkhaz, and that it was a shame that the Council never heard from the Abkhaz authorities. As he began speaking, the US' Rosemarie DiCarlo was whispering to some reporters over the stakeout barricade. Churkin indicated that she should be more quiet or move further away. "We are a rules based community," he said.
Churkin praised (former?) Abkhazia envoy Johan Verbecke as a good colleague. Inner City Press asked the proponents what happens next with Verbeke. You have to ask the UN, Amb. DiCarlo answered.
Finally Georgia's Ambassador came out, saying that "one country" had blocked everything. Inner City Press first asked if he stood behind his allegation that Russia blackmailed Ban Ki-moon into changing his report on Abkhazia, to drop the name of Georgia. Yes I do, he said, adding that the day's result showed that Russia couldn't blackmail the whole international community. He again said, one country alone blocked it. Inner City Press asked, what about the abstainers. He replied that each of them had expressed support for territorial integrity. Note that Russia does too, some of the time -- and the proponents didn't, at least when it came to Kosovo.
Like we said, selective sovereignty.
* * *
On Sri Lanka, UN Has No Comment on Prison Labor, New GA President Will Not Explain
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, June 12 -- The UN at all levels demonstrates blindness with respect to Sri Lanka, from the use of prison labor in the now emptied out north to even recognizing the name of the country. Incoming General Assembly president Ali Abdussalam Treki of Libya on Friday took questions from the Press.
Inner City Press asked him about two countries, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. To the latter, Libya agreed to a $500 million loan, to make up for the $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund delayed by reports of mistreatment of civilians. Inner City Press asked Treki, since Libya was among those blocking Security Council action, if he could imagine Sri Lanka being taken up in the General Assembly, as Myanmar has been. Video here, from Minute 17:46.
Ali Treki latched on to the Myanmar part of the question, praising the UN's envoy to that country Ibrahim Gambari, whom he said he knew when Gambari was the foreign minister of the Sani Abacha administration in Nigeria. He said he would meet with Gambari on Friday afternoon to get a report about Myanmar. About Sri Lanka, Treki said nothing, then moved on to another questioner.
Inner City Press followed up, asking why Libya didn't view the conflict in Sri Lanka as impacting international peace and security. Treki said it "interests the world, the human rights aspect," but that what "Asia says is very important, they tell us if what goes on in Myanmar" effects peace and security. Video here, from Minute 19:39.
So had Treki simply refused to answer about Sri Lanka? He will be president of the UN General Assembly from September 2009 through August 2010.
UN's Ban and Libya's Ali Treki, action on Sri Lanka and prison labor not shown
Meanwhile at the UN's noon media briefing on June 12, asked Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson Michele Montas had read out a statement that access to the camps in Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka is getting better and new camps are being built -- internment camps, with UN money -- Inner City Press asked for the UN's response to Sri Lankan authorities' statement that they will use prison labor in the north.
Ms. Montas said "no comment at this point, maybe later we will see how the issue is being discussed." Video here, from Minute 18:39.
Later Ms Montas' office sent Inner City Press the following response:
Subj: Response from OCHA on your question at the noon briefingFrom: unspokesperson-donotreply [at] un.orgTo: Inner City PressSent: 6/12/2009 12:43:56 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
On use of prison labour in reconstruction in Sri Lanka, we have not heard these allegations and have no information.
Apparently, the UN's "close monitoring" of Sri Lanka doesn't even read the news from Colombo, with quotes from government officials:
Prison inmates to be deployed for the redevelopment process in Sri Lanka's North
Thu, Jun 11, 2009, 11:51 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 11, Colombo: Sri Lanka government is planning to deploy prison inmates for the redevelopment process in the liberated areas of the North.
Prison Commissioner General, Major General V.R Silva told the media that this would be an appropriate decision to develop the liberated areas in North.
According to statistics there are nearly 30,000 inmates are in the prisons at the moment. Most of them are able bodied people with various skills, he added.
Yes, the skills of those in jail, including for violent crime, are those the Sri Lankan government is unleashing in the north. And the UN? They "have not heard these allegations and have no information." Watch this site.
* * *
On Sri Lanka, UN's Holmes Contradicts His Colleague's Caution, Sudan Double Standard?
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, June 11 -- During the bloody conflict and humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka this year, most often UN Headquarters, personified by humanitarian chief John Holmes, has sounded more cautionary notes about government conduct than has UN staff in Colombo, who face deportation or denial of visa renewals.
On Thursday, however, Holmes was decidedly more pro-government than the UN's local spokespeople, at least Mark Cutts, who expressed concern that now people will be kept in the UN-funded internment camps for up to a year. Inner City Press asked Holmes, who chose to disagree.
"I don't think anything has changed," Holmes said, repeating the government's statement that 80% of those detained will be allowed out of the camps by the end of 2009.
Holmes told Inner City Press that there have for months been some semi-permanent structures in the Manik Farm camps, made of "zinc sheeting, you probably saw them yourself when you were there." Inner City Press did see the zinc structures, along with barbed wire and armed guards.
Holmes had been briefing the UN Security Council about the situation in Sudan, with a focus on the international NGOs whose international staff members were ordered out on March 4, after Sudan's president Omar al Bashir was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. When Holmes came to speak to the Press, his assistant announced that questions should "keep to Sudan, wider issues will be address by the Secretary General in his press conference later."
As Inner City Press has reported in recent days, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople now say they will not comment on developments in Sri Lanka such as the deporting of Canadian MP Bob Rae, the extension of state of emergency anti-terror laws, and the country's outgoing chief justice's statement that those in the UN-funded internment camps have no protection from Sri Lanka's courts. That's a national issue, was the answer of Ban's spokespeople.
Since Holmes focused, to the Council and press, on NGOs in Sudan, Inner City Press asked about the recent expulsion or exclusion from Sri Lanka of international staff from the Norwegian Refugee Council, Forut, CARE and Save the Children, among others. Holmes had just mentioned moves to re-admit both CARE and Save the Children (as well as Mercy Corps and "something not really an NGO, called PADCO") to Sudan.
"It is hard to make comparisons between the two," Holmes said, apparently referring to restrictions in Sudan and Sri Lanka. "NGOs have not been expelled from Sri Lanka... There have been some visa issues for some members of NGOs' staff which we take up with the government."
Holmes said UN agencies "have difficulties from time to time." Among those difficulties was the detention by the government of Sri Lanka of UN staff and their families, something Sudan has not done.
UN's Holmes in Sudan, Sri Lanka staff not shown Whistleblowers raised the issue to Inner City Press, after which Holmes said the UN had been complaining behind the scenes. In Sudan, the UN complains publicly. In fact, the government of Sri Lanka stated that the UN had not complained about its detained staff until after the issue was raised publicly by the Press in New York.
It is hard to make comparisons between the two -- the UN is loud in its criticism of any move against UN staff in Sudan, while it stayed silent as UN staff were held in detention by the government of Sri Lanka. How then to read Holmes' upbeat assessment on Thursday? We will continue to inquire.
Footnotes: Regarding Sudan, Inner City Press asked Holmes why UN envoy Chissano has ended his attempt to solve the problem of the Lord's Resistance Army. Holmes said Chissano "will end or has ended" this work because it is "not a very realistic hope" that Kony will sign a peace deal with the Yoweri Museveni government of Uganda. What next?
Inner City Press is informed that, in closed door consultations, Western Council members such as Croatia insisted that there is a wider "humanitarian gap" in Sudan than even Holmes would portray. Holmes and the UN apparently feel no such pressure regarding the situation in Sri Lanka, and therefore revert to the path of least resistance, trying to not criticize the government despite what's happening to civilians. Watch this site.
Channel 4 in the UK with allegations of rape and disappearance
Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
UNITED NATIONS, June 15, updated post-veto below -- Amid dark talk of a Russian veto threat, Monday in the Security Council the UN's Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) faces cancellation or at most a mere two week reprieve, Western Council diplomats tell Inner City Press. Georgian diplomats, who are not on the Security Council but pace the hallways outside, seemed resigned that any resolution containing a reference to their country's territorial integrity and continued claim over Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be vetoed by Russia.
On June 12, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert about the status of negotiations about the Georgia Mission, given French president Sarkozy's loud diplomacy last August to ostensibly solve the problem. We are working on it, Ripert said. The German mission said work would continue over the weekend. But on Monday, Western Council diplomats told the Press that they might not be able to get even a two week roll over. "Russia is playing hard ball," one said. The Georgian diplomat nodded wanly.
Russia's position is that its recognition of the unilateral declaration of independence by South Ossetia and Abkhazia rendered moot much of the so-called Sarkozy agreements. Now, many predict that South Ossetia will simply be incorporated into Russia. Abkhazia, on the other hand, seems to be aiming for more independence, putting out a call for its diaspora in Turkey and elsewhere to return and "build the nation."
Speaking of nations and wanna-be nations, it is hard not to notice that Russia, which supported Sri Lanka's position that the Tamil "separatists" in northern Sri Lanka could be attacked along with civilians without any formal Security Council meeting, now enforces the separatist rights of Abkhaz and South Ossetians. Russia's argues is that these people were attacked. And the Tamils weren't?
At UN, Russia's Churkin under UK Sawers' watchful eye
At 10:38 a.m. outside the Council, a Georgia diplomat shook his head and told Inner City Press, "It's either short lived or its dead." Watch this space for updates.
Update of 12:53 p.m. -- Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has made the veto threat public. First he spoke with the Russian press -- "eight minutes straight without taking a breath," one non-Russian speaking reporter described it -- then in English at the stakeout, for UN TV. He said that even on June 12, the "Friends of Georgia" indicated they would look into what to call the mission, for purposes of a rollover. But now, Churkin said, they've put in blue a resolution which includes the name Georgia and pre-conflict Resolution 1808. Russia had said it would vote no, and has counter offered a one month rollover with no reference to Georgia or its territorial integrity. A vote is scheduled for 5 p.m.. They are playing chicken: who will blink first?
Inner City Press asked Churkin to distinguish the UNMIK mission in Kosovo, the extensions of which refer to Resolution 1244 (1999) and Russia's insistence in dropping any reference to Resolution 1808 (2008 -- April). Churkin, choosing his words careful, said among other things that Kosovo is still governed by 1244, while this is not the case in Abkhazia, given the different format of peacekeeping. Video through here. Like we said: selective sovereignty, on both sides...
Update of 5:45 p.m. -- the Council has consulted, now reportedly waiting for China to get instructions. A Western diplomat tells Inner City Press that it could be over by 6 p.m.. By over he means, the end of the mission.
Inner City Press asks, what would happened with envoy Verbecke? Back to Lebanon? Or is he... a man without a mission? Watch this space.
Update of 6:10 p.m. -- the members are in the Chamber, and Inner City Press in the cheap seats filing this report. Russia's Churkin is speaking before the vote, against "old terms in documents." Veto seems assured.
Update of 6:13 p.m. -- Churkin says the Westernerns were "chasing political chimera." A word straight out of Baudelaire, rarely heard these days even at the UN. "Our partners preferred poison to medicine" -- Russia "cannot allow its adoptions."
Update of 6:17 p.m. -- Russia votes no, alone. Then four abstentions, including China, Libya and Vietnam. Ten in favor. Not adopted, based on the negative vote of a permanent member. Now Ripert of France is speaking, a counter-telling of the run up to the veto.
Update of 6:21 p.m. -- Ripert says there are areas of hatred still remaining, France regrets this Russian veto and expresses its support for Georgia's territorial integrity in its internationally recognized borders. Now Mr. La of China says "we should have made further efforts" with six hours to go. China urges the Group of Friends to arrive at a compromise plan, to show "maximum flexibility."
Update of 6:25 p.m. -- the US' Rosemary DiCarlo takes the floor, expressing regret. We may now need to consider measures to deal with a Georgia without a UN presence. She says, "Abkhazia, Georgia" and thanks Johan Verbecke for his service. The man without a mission...
Update of 6:28 p.m. -- Vietnam says it abstained to allow negotiations. The UK's Deputy Permanent Representative says he "regrets' Russia's decision. He says the Abkhaz want the mission to stay, only Russia didn't.
Update of 6:32 p.m. -- Japan's Amb. Takasu speaks of humanitarian issues, and "disappointment." There was no reason, he says, to have dropped the reference to Resolution 1808. Croatia follows suit. Uganda calls UN presence "on the ground... vital."
Update of 6:40 p.m. -- Costa Rica's Urbina speaks of the "Grupos de Amigos." Mexico's Heller also laments the end of the Mission.
Update of 6:47 p.m. -- Libya's Deputy has that any activity on behalf of UN must have the agreement of "all parties of the United Nations." So, my delegation abstained on the vote, he says.
Update of 6:49 p.m. -- Burkina Faso says "malgres tout," his delegation calls on all parties to try peaceful response. And now Turkey, the last member after the vote. Turkey co-sponsored the attempted roll over, that Russia vetoed.
Update of 6:51 p.m. -- now Georgia's ambassador speaks, that a single member has killed the mission. He refers to "Russia's invasion last summer." The occupied region of Georgia is the phrase he uses. He says without UNOMIG there will be less objective information. It is evidence that Russia does not wish to have evidence, he says. Sound like Sri Lanka.... Expect Russia to reply.
Update of 6:56 p.m. -- here comes Churkin, using his right of reply. For many years now, we were very patient, in listening to Georgia. Abkhaz representatives were not given an opportunity to tell the Council their position. I could be critical of the statement of the Georgia representative, there is not enough time.
But he takes on two or three colleagues. Contrary first the French -- Churkin says all that was at issued today was a draft, on a technical rollover. Then against two unnamed members -- no one mentioned Georgia's aggression, he says. At 7:02, that's it -- to the stake out!
Update of 7:50 p.m. -- And after the veto and the abstentions, the doomed resolution's proponents took to the stakeout microphone. Absent, it seemed, was Turkey. Inner City Press asked the UK Deputy Permanent representative for the basis of his statement that the Abkhaz favored the continuation of the mission. He said it was UK sources there. But did they oppose inclusion of a reference to resolution 1808 in the resolution? In the ultimate big resolution, yes they did oppose, was the answer. The implication was that the Abkhaz could have lived with 1808 in the roll-over resolution that Russia vetoed.
Inner City Press put the question to Russia's Churkin, who said that Russia is in touch with the Abkhaz, and that it was a shame that the Council never heard from the Abkhaz authorities. As he began speaking, the US' Rosemarie DiCarlo was whispering to some reporters over the stakeout barricade. Churkin indicated that she should be more quiet or move further away. "We are a rules based community," he said.
Churkin praised (former?) Abkhazia envoy Johan Verbecke as a good colleague. Inner City Press asked the proponents what happens next with Verbeke. You have to ask the UN, Amb. DiCarlo answered.
Finally Georgia's Ambassador came out, saying that "one country" had blocked everything. Inner City Press first asked if he stood behind his allegation that Russia blackmailed Ban Ki-moon into changing his report on Abkhazia, to drop the name of Georgia. Yes I do, he said, adding that the day's result showed that Russia couldn't blackmail the whole international community. He again said, one country alone blocked it. Inner City Press asked, what about the abstainers. He replied that each of them had expressed support for territorial integrity. Note that Russia does too, some of the time -- and the proponents didn't, at least when it came to Kosovo.
Like we said, selective sovereignty.
* * *
On Sri Lanka, UN Has No Comment on Prison Labor, New GA President Will Not Explain
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, June 12 -- The UN at all levels demonstrates blindness with respect to Sri Lanka, from the use of prison labor in the now emptied out north to even recognizing the name of the country. Incoming General Assembly president Ali Abdussalam Treki of Libya on Friday took questions from the Press.
Inner City Press asked him about two countries, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. To the latter, Libya agreed to a $500 million loan, to make up for the $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund delayed by reports of mistreatment of civilians. Inner City Press asked Treki, since Libya was among those blocking Security Council action, if he could imagine Sri Lanka being taken up in the General Assembly, as Myanmar has been. Video here, from Minute 17:46.
Ali Treki latched on to the Myanmar part of the question, praising the UN's envoy to that country Ibrahim Gambari, whom he said he knew when Gambari was the foreign minister of the Sani Abacha administration in Nigeria. He said he would meet with Gambari on Friday afternoon to get a report about Myanmar. About Sri Lanka, Treki said nothing, then moved on to another questioner.
Inner City Press followed up, asking why Libya didn't view the conflict in Sri Lanka as impacting international peace and security. Treki said it "interests the world, the human rights aspect," but that what "Asia says is very important, they tell us if what goes on in Myanmar" effects peace and security. Video here, from Minute 19:39.
So had Treki simply refused to answer about Sri Lanka? He will be president of the UN General Assembly from September 2009 through August 2010.
UN's Ban and Libya's Ali Treki, action on Sri Lanka and prison labor not shown
Meanwhile at the UN's noon media briefing on June 12, asked Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson Michele Montas had read out a statement that access to the camps in Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka is getting better and new camps are being built -- internment camps, with UN money -- Inner City Press asked for the UN's response to Sri Lankan authorities' statement that they will use prison labor in the north.
Ms. Montas said "no comment at this point, maybe later we will see how the issue is being discussed." Video here, from Minute 18:39.
Later Ms Montas' office sent Inner City Press the following response:
Subj: Response from OCHA on your question at the noon briefingFrom: unspokesperson-donotreply [at] un.orgTo: Inner City PressSent: 6/12/2009 12:43:56 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
On use of prison labour in reconstruction in Sri Lanka, we have not heard these allegations and have no information.
Apparently, the UN's "close monitoring" of Sri Lanka doesn't even read the news from Colombo, with quotes from government officials:
Prison inmates to be deployed for the redevelopment process in Sri Lanka's North
Thu, Jun 11, 2009, 11:51 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 11, Colombo: Sri Lanka government is planning to deploy prison inmates for the redevelopment process in the liberated areas of the North.
Prison Commissioner General, Major General V.R Silva told the media that this would be an appropriate decision to develop the liberated areas in North.
According to statistics there are nearly 30,000 inmates are in the prisons at the moment. Most of them are able bodied people with various skills, he added.
Yes, the skills of those in jail, including for violent crime, are those the Sri Lankan government is unleashing in the north. And the UN? They "have not heard these allegations and have no information." Watch this site.
* * *
On Sri Lanka, UN's Holmes Contradicts His Colleague's Caution, Sudan Double Standard?
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, June 11 -- During the bloody conflict and humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka this year, most often UN Headquarters, personified by humanitarian chief John Holmes, has sounded more cautionary notes about government conduct than has UN staff in Colombo, who face deportation or denial of visa renewals.
On Thursday, however, Holmes was decidedly more pro-government than the UN's local spokespeople, at least Mark Cutts, who expressed concern that now people will be kept in the UN-funded internment camps for up to a year. Inner City Press asked Holmes, who chose to disagree.
"I don't think anything has changed," Holmes said, repeating the government's statement that 80% of those detained will be allowed out of the camps by the end of 2009.
Holmes told Inner City Press that there have for months been some semi-permanent structures in the Manik Farm camps, made of "zinc sheeting, you probably saw them yourself when you were there." Inner City Press did see the zinc structures, along with barbed wire and armed guards.
Holmes had been briefing the UN Security Council about the situation in Sudan, with a focus on the international NGOs whose international staff members were ordered out on March 4, after Sudan's president Omar al Bashir was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. When Holmes came to speak to the Press, his assistant announced that questions should "keep to Sudan, wider issues will be address by the Secretary General in his press conference later."
As Inner City Press has reported in recent days, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople now say they will not comment on developments in Sri Lanka such as the deporting of Canadian MP Bob Rae, the extension of state of emergency anti-terror laws, and the country's outgoing chief justice's statement that those in the UN-funded internment camps have no protection from Sri Lanka's courts. That's a national issue, was the answer of Ban's spokespeople.
Since Holmes focused, to the Council and press, on NGOs in Sudan, Inner City Press asked about the recent expulsion or exclusion from Sri Lanka of international staff from the Norwegian Refugee Council, Forut, CARE and Save the Children, among others. Holmes had just mentioned moves to re-admit both CARE and Save the Children (as well as Mercy Corps and "something not really an NGO, called PADCO") to Sudan.
"It is hard to make comparisons between the two," Holmes said, apparently referring to restrictions in Sudan and Sri Lanka. "NGOs have not been expelled from Sri Lanka... There have been some visa issues for some members of NGOs' staff which we take up with the government."
Holmes said UN agencies "have difficulties from time to time." Among those difficulties was the detention by the government of Sri Lanka of UN staff and their families, something Sudan has not done.
UN's Holmes in Sudan, Sri Lanka staff not shown Whistleblowers raised the issue to Inner City Press, after which Holmes said the UN had been complaining behind the scenes. In Sudan, the UN complains publicly. In fact, the government of Sri Lanka stated that the UN had not complained about its detained staff until after the issue was raised publicly by the Press in New York.
It is hard to make comparisons between the two -- the UN is loud in its criticism of any move against UN staff in Sudan, while it stayed silent as UN staff were held in detention by the government of Sri Lanka. How then to read Holmes' upbeat assessment on Thursday? We will continue to inquire.
Footnotes: Regarding Sudan, Inner City Press asked Holmes why UN envoy Chissano has ended his attempt to solve the problem of the Lord's Resistance Army. Holmes said Chissano "will end or has ended" this work because it is "not a very realistic hope" that Kony will sign a peace deal with the Yoweri Museveni government of Uganda. What next?
Inner City Press is informed that, in closed door consultations, Western Council members such as Croatia insisted that there is a wider "humanitarian gap" in Sudan than even Holmes would portray. Holmes and the UN apparently feel no such pressure regarding the situation in Sri Lanka, and therefore revert to the path of least resistance, trying to not criticize the government despite what's happening to civilians. Watch this site.
Channel 4 in the UK with allegations of rape and disappearance
Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.
Remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, US Permanent Representative, on the UN Security Council and the Responsibility to Protect, at the International P
Thank you very much. It’s an honor and a pleasure to be here, especially with so many of you who work with the UN system every day to try to protect civilians from harm. I’m particularly grateful to the Government of Austria for hosting me today, and to the International Peace Institute for its valuable work.
Colleagues, we have just drawn down the curtain on the bloodiest century in human history. That is why the United States is determined to work together with you and others to ensure that the 21st century takes a far lesser toll on civilians—on innocents who should be sheltered by the rule of law and the rules of war. I believe deeply that atrocities are not inevitable. They need not be part of the landscape of world politics—unless we let them be.
In recent years, our consciences have been seared by the horrors of Srebrenica, Rwanda, and Darfur. Today, we are challenged again by the desperate plight of civilians in such places as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sri Lanka, among others.
My interest here is deep, and, in part, personal. In 1994, I was serving on the National Security Council staff at the White House. That December, I visited Rwanda for the first time—just six months after the Ex-FAR and Interahamwe finished with their machetes, pangas and guns. As long as I live, I will never forget the horror of walking through a churchyard and adjacent schoolyard where one of the massacres had occurred. Six months later, the decomposing bodies of those who had been so cruelly murdered still lay strewn around what should have been a place of peace. For me, the memory of stepping around those corpses will remain the most searing reminder imaginable of what we must all aim to prevent.
Last month, I visited Rwanda again with my colleagues on the UN Security Council, which was the first time for me in several years. We visited the phenomenally powerful Kigali Genocide Museum, which is the gravesite for some 250,000 victims. We spoke with survivors, with killers, with government officials and many who are trying and, to an amazing extent, succeeding in overcoming the past. We were reminded of our shared responsibility for the international community’s failure to act in the face of the last genocide of the 20th century. And I could not help but think of our collective failures that persist to this day.
Ever since the Holocaust, the world has often said, “Never again.” In our hearts, I believe we mean it. But the undeniable fact is: we all have much more to do to give those words meaning and strength, to make them real.
Yet, at the core of my being, I believe that our new century can and must be better than the last—more rooted in humane values, more committed to human rights. Much brave work has already been done. The horrors of the 20th century have helped give rise to an important shift in our thinking about mass slaughter—and to a range of new tools to prevent and respond to it. The international community has started to create a new vocabulary for talking about genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. And it has started to craft a new way to stop them.
The Responsibility to Protect—or, as it has come to be known, R2P—represents an important step forward in the long historical struggle to save lives and guard the wellbeing of people endangered by conflict. It holds that states have responsibilities as well as interests—and that states have particularly vital duties to shield their own populations from the depraved and the murderous. This approach is bold. It is important. And the United States welcomes it.
We are not alone. All 192 UN member states adopted the Responsibility to Protect at the World Summit in 2005.The next year, the Security Council reaffirmed this commitment—and the related principle of protecting civilians—in Resolution 1674, and the Council has taken R2P at least partly into account in its actions on Sudan and the DRC.
The Responsibility to Protect is rooted in the principle that states have a fundamental responsibility to protect their populations from such atrocities as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. It holds that other states, in turn, have a corollary responsibility to assist, if a state cannot meet its fundamental responsibility to its citizens—or to take collective action, if a state will not meet that fundamental responsibility. R2P enjoins us to mobilize a wide spectrum of policies and instruments, both as individual nations and as an international community. Only rarely and only in extremis does that include the use of force.
That is the principle. Turning it into practice will take resolve. The consensus reached in 2005 was—to be frank—more broad than deep. We have seen some erosion of will since then, and we may see more, particularly in an age of economic crisis, political jolts, and transnational threats.
So let me touch on a few key challenges that states of goodwill face in trying to save lives from those bent on mass slaughter, and then offer a few thoughts toward an agenda for common action. These challenges are real. But we can meet them if we work together and remain ever mindful of the stakes of failing to act.
First, we still face confusion and misunderstanding—willful or otherwise—about what the Responsibility to Protect is and is not.
To take just one example, some defended the war in Iraq by invoking the Responsibility to Protect, a tactic that still casts a shadow on efforts to deepen the consensus around the R2P concept. Some still conflate R2P with an unfettered right to intervention. It is not. In fact, the Responsibility to Protect asks us to mobilize a range of responses that have nothing to do with intervention.
Some have also suggested that the Responsibility to Protect is merely a preoccupation of the West. I believe our African colleagues would disagree, and rightly so. . Let us remember that the African Union beat all of us to this principle. In 2000, its Constitutive Act invoked a concept of “non-indifference” in the face of grave crimes, and Article 4 of that Act authorized decisive AU action to put a halt to war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Let us also remember that the World Summit consensus on the Responsibility to Protect passed in very large part because of the determined advocacy of concerned African states. So let no one dare suggest that the most basic precepts of humanity and decency somehow belong to only one part of the globe.
We must also resist the temptation to apply the concept too widely, even when we are moved by other instances of human suffering. The Responsibility to Protect should be invoked only in truly grave cases. The power of R2P is precisely that it reminds us to act in the face of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. The power of R2P is that it insists that especially egregious crimes demand braver and better behavior from all of us. This does not mean that we should be indifferent to the broad range of perils that threaten people’s lives and welfare. It means merely that we have a particular responsibility to respond to the worst outrages.
Second, we should not wait for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing to occur before we act. The potential for mass atrocities is greatest amid war and civil strife. But genocide and mass killings are by no means a simple and inevitable consequence of conflict. The decision to use mere differences among groups as a license for atrocity or a path to power is precisely that: a craven decision, one consciously made by the wicked, the callous, and the cruel.
Third, humanitarian requirements will often jostle with other legitimate policy concerns. It does no good to pretend that priorities do not sometimes compete — and even where they do not, even where our values and our interests fall neatly in step together, the answers are not always obvious. . Again, consider Sudan, where we simultaneously face the genocide in Darfur, the recent expulsion of critical international NGOs, a faltering North-South peace process, and the risk of new instability in various parts of the country. The urgency and complexity of the overall situation can distract us from addressing adequately any single imperative and, indeed, the reverse is also a risk.
The fourth challenge is the question of tactics. When mass atrocities erupt or loom, we must carefully weigh whether invoking the Responsibility to Protect will actually improve our chances of success. Will it make it easier to win over the cooperation we will need? Or will it drive potential partners away? There are no one-size-fits-all answers.
Consider Kenya in 2007-08, which is often called one of the first successful instances of R2P in action. Contested elections led to the rapid displacement of an estimated 600,000 people and to widespread abuse, rape, and murder, including the horrible death of 30 people who were burned alive inside a church.
The good news is that international action was swift. The African Union took an early lead, with two mediation initiatives—eventually led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan—that produced a power-sharing agreement just two months after the initial crisis began. In a consensus Presidential Statement, the UN Security Council endorsed the AU process and the invaluable operational support that Annan’s efforts were receiving from the UN Secretariat.
But more troubling news is that the conditions that produced such a rapid response in Kenya were far from typical. And even in the Security Council, international unity did not come easily. It’s worth noting that the Responsibility to Protect was explicitly not part of the debate in the Council —and colleagues who handled this issue in 2008 tell me that it was difficult even to build support for a Council vote of confidence in Annan’s mission. Raising the R2P flag may be morally satisfying, but it can be politically fraught.
These, I would suggest, are some of the core challenges that make it harder to save civilians from mass atrocity. So how can we overcome them?
We are lucky to have the benefit of many efforts that help suggest the way ahead, including crucial work done by a wide array of NGOs and experts from around the globe, the Secretary-General’s report, and the report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen and jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace. Let me touch on key elements that they raise.
Indeed, we must do more to prevent conflicts and reduce the risks that cause them. We know a good deal more today about how poverty, environmental pressures, poor governance, and state weakness raise the risk of civil conflict. But we have yet to act consistently to reduce these risks. We must renew our efforts to deploy new and existing tools to limit the likelihood that disputes will explode into mass violence. That means combating poverty, fighting discrimination, assuring that scarce resources are shared more equitably, better tapping alternative and renewable resources, strengthening the rule of law, and building more accountable and democratic institutions to thwart the abuse of power and limit the corrosive effects of corruption. We must recognize that development and security are inextricably linked. We must look anew at ways to support fragile states, particularly as they are rattled by global forces such as climate change and the financial crisis. And, as the Secretary-General’s report notes, we must build up the institutions that make a society resilient in the hour of crisis: including communities, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, schools, independent media, and strong civil society organizations.
In addition, we should sharpen and strengthen our instruments for conflict management, and hone them to cope specifically with mass atrocities. That means working with willing partners, including the United Nations, regional and sub-regional groups, development banks, donors, and nongovernmental organizations. It means making sure our tools are sturdy. It means garnering sufficient resources. And it means keeping our efforts coordinated and bound together with a unity of purpose that has too often been elusive.
Let me briefly discuss several of those instruments.
First are the linked questions of early warning, analysis, and decision-making. We must do more to ensure that a lack of information will never be a reason again for inaction. Working with governments, regional organizations, and NGO partners, we should strive to collect more, different, and better information about the risks and signs of mass violence — and then to share it. That data should also be analyzed with extra sensitivity to the potential for atrocity. And it should be channeled in real time to decision-makers who can do something about it.
But one significant caveat: history shows that slow policy responses to mass slaughter often stems from factors other than a genuine absence of information about what is unfolding. More often, policymakers knew a significant amount but were held back by competing policy priorities, limited knowledge of the country at risk, disincentives for speaking out, political concerns, and other factors.
Second, preventive diplomacy. The last twenty years and more have taught us that international mediation and diplomacy, backed by a readiness to use other tools, are among the most effective ways to prevent and halt violence. At the UN, innovations like mediation standby teams are an important start, but these teams remain underutilized and they need more resources. We still have too few mediators with the right skills ready to deploy in real time — and, I might add, far too few women. We need also greater surge capacity, closer cooperation among mediators, and better coordination between mediation and other tools of conflict management. And we need to redouble our efforts to forge the international unity it will take for mediation to succeed.
Third, peacekeeping. We greatly appreciate the courage and dedication shown by UN blue helmets around the world, but these brave men and women are often stretched up to — or beyond— their limits. We must make sure that peacekeepers have the help they need to prevent a fragile peace from breaking down, and we must invest in more effective and efficient peacekeeping that can protect civilians menaced by rebel bands and marauding gangs, whether in Haiti or the eastern DRC.
But UN peacekeepers — even better trained and equipped ones — are not always the right solution when innocents are in peril. Sometimes, an unfolding atrocity is so large or so fast that it can be quelled only by the swift arrival of combat-ready brigades or their equivalent—operating outside the UN chain of command, and not built from scratch as a UN peacekeeping force must be. Only a handful of countries have this capacity at the ready, and even fewer can or will guarantee a response when called upon. Such governments, and regional organizations including NATO and the European Union, must take a hard look at their will and capacity to quickly deploy — either to fill the gap before peacekeepers arrive, reinforce them during a crisis, or to respond in cases where peacekeepers are not the right answer to begin with.
Through our Global Peace Operations Initiative, the United States has helped train and equip tens of thousands of peacekeepers, and we are working to improve peacekeepers’ abilities to protect civilians from the imminent threat of violence.
Fourth, we must put the bite back in sanctions. We have increasingly sophisticated tools to compel states and leaders to abide by international laws and norms. Through the UN, we can freeze individuals’ assets, ban international travel, restrict the flow of luxury goods and arms, and do much more to limit abusers’ abilities to threaten others. But, the Security Council often finds it difficult to overcome member states’ reluctance to wield and fully implement sanctions on behalf of the victims of mass atrocities. I hope to be able to work with my Security Council colleagues to make better, smarter use of sanctions —not only to maintain global order or to halt proliferation but also to save innocent lives at immediate risk. Sanctions can be an effective, if not always a flexible, targeted instrument, and we must seek to strengthen them.
And, finally, peacebuilding. We still have much more to do to foster firm foundations for peace in societies that are trying to leave years of conflict behind them. Just because the killing stops does not mean it won’t start again. The past decade has witnessed major innovations in peacebuilding, including the creation of the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission, but we have much farther to go. We need more flexible development funds that arrive sooner; early investments in the core capacities of a struggling state; international support for national efforts to reinforce the rule of law, demobilize ex-combatants and reform state security services. We need lasting support for victims of sexual violence and other human rights abuses; and an insistence that we not assume the job is done until the peace is secure.
The United States is committed as well to doing its part to strengthen the international human rights architecture, which will help establish global norms that abhor genocide and mass atrocities. The United States strongly supports the UN’s network of Special Rapporteurs and Experts, which can provide invaluable information on unfolding calamities or potential ones. A more robust field presence from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is one tool to help build up national human rights institutions and help make a difference when a crisis erupts.
As you know, the United States will soon join the UN Human Rights Council. We will use that seat to push hard for balanced and credible action, to change the rules of the game, to scrutinize human rights records across the board, and to cast the spotlight on the world’s worst abusers. In a crisis, the Council’s ability to call special sessions—something too often abused in the past—can focus needed global attention and action on deteriorating human rights conditions.
To conclude, the Responsibility to Protect is a duty that I feel deeply. I believe we must be voices for action in the face of genocide and mass atrocities, even if we are lonely ones.
The world will never give us the quiet we might wish to gather our thoughts, weigh our options, and summon our nerve. Even as we speak, the ground is burning in all too many places. We must prepare for the likelihood that we will again face the worst impulses of human nature run riot, perhaps as soon as in days to come. And we must be ready.
We know there will be more perpetrators. We know there will be more victims. But we must work to ensure that there will also be more justice and fewer and fewer bystanders.
We all know the greatest obstacle to swift action in the face of sudden atrocity is, ultimately, political will. The hard truth is that stopping mass atrocities requires more than just the wisdom to see a way to save innocents from knives and the guns. It requires above all the courage and compassion to act. Together, let us all help one other to have and to act upon the courage of our convictions.
view original sourcehttp://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/press_releases/20090615_126.html
Colleagues, we have just drawn down the curtain on the bloodiest century in human history. That is why the United States is determined to work together with you and others to ensure that the 21st century takes a far lesser toll on civilians—on innocents who should be sheltered by the rule of law and the rules of war. I believe deeply that atrocities are not inevitable. They need not be part of the landscape of world politics—unless we let them be.
In recent years, our consciences have been seared by the horrors of Srebrenica, Rwanda, and Darfur. Today, we are challenged again by the desperate plight of civilians in such places as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sri Lanka, among others.
My interest here is deep, and, in part, personal. In 1994, I was serving on the National Security Council staff at the White House. That December, I visited Rwanda for the first time—just six months after the Ex-FAR and Interahamwe finished with their machetes, pangas and guns. As long as I live, I will never forget the horror of walking through a churchyard and adjacent schoolyard where one of the massacres had occurred. Six months later, the decomposing bodies of those who had been so cruelly murdered still lay strewn around what should have been a place of peace. For me, the memory of stepping around those corpses will remain the most searing reminder imaginable of what we must all aim to prevent.
Last month, I visited Rwanda again with my colleagues on the UN Security Council, which was the first time for me in several years. We visited the phenomenally powerful Kigali Genocide Museum, which is the gravesite for some 250,000 victims. We spoke with survivors, with killers, with government officials and many who are trying and, to an amazing extent, succeeding in overcoming the past. We were reminded of our shared responsibility for the international community’s failure to act in the face of the last genocide of the 20th century. And I could not help but think of our collective failures that persist to this day.
Ever since the Holocaust, the world has often said, “Never again.” In our hearts, I believe we mean it. But the undeniable fact is: we all have much more to do to give those words meaning and strength, to make them real.
Yet, at the core of my being, I believe that our new century can and must be better than the last—more rooted in humane values, more committed to human rights. Much brave work has already been done. The horrors of the 20th century have helped give rise to an important shift in our thinking about mass slaughter—and to a range of new tools to prevent and respond to it. The international community has started to create a new vocabulary for talking about genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. And it has started to craft a new way to stop them.
The Responsibility to Protect—or, as it has come to be known, R2P—represents an important step forward in the long historical struggle to save lives and guard the wellbeing of people endangered by conflict. It holds that states have responsibilities as well as interests—and that states have particularly vital duties to shield their own populations from the depraved and the murderous. This approach is bold. It is important. And the United States welcomes it.
We are not alone. All 192 UN member states adopted the Responsibility to Protect at the World Summit in 2005.The next year, the Security Council reaffirmed this commitment—and the related principle of protecting civilians—in Resolution 1674, and the Council has taken R2P at least partly into account in its actions on Sudan and the DRC.
The Responsibility to Protect is rooted in the principle that states have a fundamental responsibility to protect their populations from such atrocities as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. It holds that other states, in turn, have a corollary responsibility to assist, if a state cannot meet its fundamental responsibility to its citizens—or to take collective action, if a state will not meet that fundamental responsibility. R2P enjoins us to mobilize a wide spectrum of policies and instruments, both as individual nations and as an international community. Only rarely and only in extremis does that include the use of force.
That is the principle. Turning it into practice will take resolve. The consensus reached in 2005 was—to be frank—more broad than deep. We have seen some erosion of will since then, and we may see more, particularly in an age of economic crisis, political jolts, and transnational threats.
So let me touch on a few key challenges that states of goodwill face in trying to save lives from those bent on mass slaughter, and then offer a few thoughts toward an agenda for common action. These challenges are real. But we can meet them if we work together and remain ever mindful of the stakes of failing to act.
First, we still face confusion and misunderstanding—willful or otherwise—about what the Responsibility to Protect is and is not.
To take just one example, some defended the war in Iraq by invoking the Responsibility to Protect, a tactic that still casts a shadow on efforts to deepen the consensus around the R2P concept. Some still conflate R2P with an unfettered right to intervention. It is not. In fact, the Responsibility to Protect asks us to mobilize a range of responses that have nothing to do with intervention.
Some have also suggested that the Responsibility to Protect is merely a preoccupation of the West. I believe our African colleagues would disagree, and rightly so. . Let us remember that the African Union beat all of us to this principle. In 2000, its Constitutive Act invoked a concept of “non-indifference” in the face of grave crimes, and Article 4 of that Act authorized decisive AU action to put a halt to war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Let us also remember that the World Summit consensus on the Responsibility to Protect passed in very large part because of the determined advocacy of concerned African states. So let no one dare suggest that the most basic precepts of humanity and decency somehow belong to only one part of the globe.
We must also resist the temptation to apply the concept too widely, even when we are moved by other instances of human suffering. The Responsibility to Protect should be invoked only in truly grave cases. The power of R2P is precisely that it reminds us to act in the face of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. The power of R2P is that it insists that especially egregious crimes demand braver and better behavior from all of us. This does not mean that we should be indifferent to the broad range of perils that threaten people’s lives and welfare. It means merely that we have a particular responsibility to respond to the worst outrages.
Second, we should not wait for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing to occur before we act. The potential for mass atrocities is greatest amid war and civil strife. But genocide and mass killings are by no means a simple and inevitable consequence of conflict. The decision to use mere differences among groups as a license for atrocity or a path to power is precisely that: a craven decision, one consciously made by the wicked, the callous, and the cruel.
Third, humanitarian requirements will often jostle with other legitimate policy concerns. It does no good to pretend that priorities do not sometimes compete — and even where they do not, even where our values and our interests fall neatly in step together, the answers are not always obvious. . Again, consider Sudan, where we simultaneously face the genocide in Darfur, the recent expulsion of critical international NGOs, a faltering North-South peace process, and the risk of new instability in various parts of the country. The urgency and complexity of the overall situation can distract us from addressing adequately any single imperative and, indeed, the reverse is also a risk.
The fourth challenge is the question of tactics. When mass atrocities erupt or loom, we must carefully weigh whether invoking the Responsibility to Protect will actually improve our chances of success. Will it make it easier to win over the cooperation we will need? Or will it drive potential partners away? There are no one-size-fits-all answers.
Consider Kenya in 2007-08, which is often called one of the first successful instances of R2P in action. Contested elections led to the rapid displacement of an estimated 600,000 people and to widespread abuse, rape, and murder, including the horrible death of 30 people who were burned alive inside a church.
The good news is that international action was swift. The African Union took an early lead, with two mediation initiatives—eventually led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan—that produced a power-sharing agreement just two months after the initial crisis began. In a consensus Presidential Statement, the UN Security Council endorsed the AU process and the invaluable operational support that Annan’s efforts were receiving from the UN Secretariat.
But more troubling news is that the conditions that produced such a rapid response in Kenya were far from typical. And even in the Security Council, international unity did not come easily. It’s worth noting that the Responsibility to Protect was explicitly not part of the debate in the Council —and colleagues who handled this issue in 2008 tell me that it was difficult even to build support for a Council vote of confidence in Annan’s mission. Raising the R2P flag may be morally satisfying, but it can be politically fraught.
These, I would suggest, are some of the core challenges that make it harder to save civilians from mass atrocity. So how can we overcome them?
We are lucky to have the benefit of many efforts that help suggest the way ahead, including crucial work done by a wide array of NGOs and experts from around the globe, the Secretary-General’s report, and the report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen and jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace. Let me touch on key elements that they raise.
Indeed, we must do more to prevent conflicts and reduce the risks that cause them. We know a good deal more today about how poverty, environmental pressures, poor governance, and state weakness raise the risk of civil conflict. But we have yet to act consistently to reduce these risks. We must renew our efforts to deploy new and existing tools to limit the likelihood that disputes will explode into mass violence. That means combating poverty, fighting discrimination, assuring that scarce resources are shared more equitably, better tapping alternative and renewable resources, strengthening the rule of law, and building more accountable and democratic institutions to thwart the abuse of power and limit the corrosive effects of corruption. We must recognize that development and security are inextricably linked. We must look anew at ways to support fragile states, particularly as they are rattled by global forces such as climate change and the financial crisis. And, as the Secretary-General’s report notes, we must build up the institutions that make a society resilient in the hour of crisis: including communities, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, schools, independent media, and strong civil society organizations.
In addition, we should sharpen and strengthen our instruments for conflict management, and hone them to cope specifically with mass atrocities. That means working with willing partners, including the United Nations, regional and sub-regional groups, development banks, donors, and nongovernmental organizations. It means making sure our tools are sturdy. It means garnering sufficient resources. And it means keeping our efforts coordinated and bound together with a unity of purpose that has too often been elusive.
Let me briefly discuss several of those instruments.
First are the linked questions of early warning, analysis, and decision-making. We must do more to ensure that a lack of information will never be a reason again for inaction. Working with governments, regional organizations, and NGO partners, we should strive to collect more, different, and better information about the risks and signs of mass violence — and then to share it. That data should also be analyzed with extra sensitivity to the potential for atrocity. And it should be channeled in real time to decision-makers who can do something about it.
But one significant caveat: history shows that slow policy responses to mass slaughter often stems from factors other than a genuine absence of information about what is unfolding. More often, policymakers knew a significant amount but were held back by competing policy priorities, limited knowledge of the country at risk, disincentives for speaking out, political concerns, and other factors.
Second, preventive diplomacy. The last twenty years and more have taught us that international mediation and diplomacy, backed by a readiness to use other tools, are among the most effective ways to prevent and halt violence. At the UN, innovations like mediation standby teams are an important start, but these teams remain underutilized and they need more resources. We still have too few mediators with the right skills ready to deploy in real time — and, I might add, far too few women. We need also greater surge capacity, closer cooperation among mediators, and better coordination between mediation and other tools of conflict management. And we need to redouble our efforts to forge the international unity it will take for mediation to succeed.
Third, peacekeeping. We greatly appreciate the courage and dedication shown by UN blue helmets around the world, but these brave men and women are often stretched up to — or beyond— their limits. We must make sure that peacekeepers have the help they need to prevent a fragile peace from breaking down, and we must invest in more effective and efficient peacekeeping that can protect civilians menaced by rebel bands and marauding gangs, whether in Haiti or the eastern DRC.
But UN peacekeepers — even better trained and equipped ones — are not always the right solution when innocents are in peril. Sometimes, an unfolding atrocity is so large or so fast that it can be quelled only by the swift arrival of combat-ready brigades or their equivalent—operating outside the UN chain of command, and not built from scratch as a UN peacekeeping force must be. Only a handful of countries have this capacity at the ready, and even fewer can or will guarantee a response when called upon. Such governments, and regional organizations including NATO and the European Union, must take a hard look at their will and capacity to quickly deploy — either to fill the gap before peacekeepers arrive, reinforce them during a crisis, or to respond in cases where peacekeepers are not the right answer to begin with.
Through our Global Peace Operations Initiative, the United States has helped train and equip tens of thousands of peacekeepers, and we are working to improve peacekeepers’ abilities to protect civilians from the imminent threat of violence.
Fourth, we must put the bite back in sanctions. We have increasingly sophisticated tools to compel states and leaders to abide by international laws and norms. Through the UN, we can freeze individuals’ assets, ban international travel, restrict the flow of luxury goods and arms, and do much more to limit abusers’ abilities to threaten others. But, the Security Council often finds it difficult to overcome member states’ reluctance to wield and fully implement sanctions on behalf of the victims of mass atrocities. I hope to be able to work with my Security Council colleagues to make better, smarter use of sanctions —not only to maintain global order or to halt proliferation but also to save innocent lives at immediate risk. Sanctions can be an effective, if not always a flexible, targeted instrument, and we must seek to strengthen them.
And, finally, peacebuilding. We still have much more to do to foster firm foundations for peace in societies that are trying to leave years of conflict behind them. Just because the killing stops does not mean it won’t start again. The past decade has witnessed major innovations in peacebuilding, including the creation of the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission, but we have much farther to go. We need more flexible development funds that arrive sooner; early investments in the core capacities of a struggling state; international support for national efforts to reinforce the rule of law, demobilize ex-combatants and reform state security services. We need lasting support for victims of sexual violence and other human rights abuses; and an insistence that we not assume the job is done until the peace is secure.
The United States is committed as well to doing its part to strengthen the international human rights architecture, which will help establish global norms that abhor genocide and mass atrocities. The United States strongly supports the UN’s network of Special Rapporteurs and Experts, which can provide invaluable information on unfolding calamities or potential ones. A more robust field presence from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is one tool to help build up national human rights institutions and help make a difference when a crisis erupts.
As you know, the United States will soon join the UN Human Rights Council. We will use that seat to push hard for balanced and credible action, to change the rules of the game, to scrutinize human rights records across the board, and to cast the spotlight on the world’s worst abusers. In a crisis, the Council’s ability to call special sessions—something too often abused in the past—can focus needed global attention and action on deteriorating human rights conditions.
To conclude, the Responsibility to Protect is a duty that I feel deeply. I believe we must be voices for action in the face of genocide and mass atrocities, even if we are lonely ones.
The world will never give us the quiet we might wish to gather our thoughts, weigh our options, and summon our nerve. Even as we speak, the ground is burning in all too many places. We must prepare for the likelihood that we will again face the worst impulses of human nature run riot, perhaps as soon as in days to come. And we must be ready.
We know there will be more perpetrators. We know there will be more victims. But we must work to ensure that there will also be more justice and fewer and fewer bystanders.
We all know the greatest obstacle to swift action in the face of sudden atrocity is, ultimately, political will. The hard truth is that stopping mass atrocities requires more than just the wisdom to see a way to save innocents from knives and the guns. It requires above all the courage and compassion to act. Together, let us all help one other to have and to act upon the courage of our convictions.
view original sourcehttp://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/press_releases/20090615_126.html
S.Lanka bourse up on IMF loan hopes, cbank buys dlrs
Reuters - Tuesday, June 16Send IM Story Print
* Market sees net foreign outflow of 119.8 million rupees
* High expectations on IMF loan moves market-brokers
* Bourse at new 9-mo high with significant turnover
* Cenbank mops up $267 million from mkt after war
By Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO, June 15 - Sri Lankan shares <.CSE> rose on Monday to a new nine-month high led by foreign buying of bluechips on an expected IMF loan approval and continued local purchases of plantation and hotel shares.
The rupee closed flat as a state bank bought dollars.
The Colombo All-Share Price Index rose 1.4 percent or 31.50 points to 2286.12, its highest close since Sept. 16. "It was a very active market," said Shivantha Meepage, a research analyst at Acuity Stockbrokers. "There is high hope of Sri Lanka getting the IMF loan soon. Foreigners bought bluechips, while retail investors bought plantation and hotel shares."
The central bank on Wednesday said Sri Lanka's request for a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan is expected to be approved by the end of June. [ID:nCOL430797] The IMF has yet to comment.
Analysts say foreign funds have been slow to come to the market, which has been driven higher by retail buyers on positive sentiments since the war ended on May 18.
Net foreign inflows had been 1.4 billion rupees before the end of war, but have turned to a net outflow of 337.8 million rupees on Monday including a 119.8 million rupee outflow. ------------------------------------------------------------
For Q+A on post-war foreign share buying see [ID:nCOL8675] ------------------------------------------------------------ High oil prices, which go along with synthetic rubber prices, and high tea prices pushed up plantation shares, analysts said.
Oil eased to around $71 a barrel on Monday, retreating from a near eight-month high last week. [ID:nLF513583]
Sri Lanka's average total tea price has jumped around 22 percent to 342 rupees in May from January on high global demand.
The bourse has risen around 20 percent since the government declared victory in the 25-year war and is up 52.1 percent so far this year on post-war optimism.
Top conglomerate John Keells Holdings rose 3.23 percent to 120 rupees, calculated on a weighted average, while Sri Lanka Telecom gained 2.38 percent to 43 rupees. Kotagala Plantation rose 15 percent to 32.50 rupees and the plantation sub-sector index <.CSEPL> gained 12 percent.
In the hotel sector, Confifi Hotels closed 9.1 percent firmer at 113.50 rupees.
The turnover was 1.19 billion rupees , more that double last year's daily average of 464 million rupees.
The rupee closed flat at 114.90/95 a dollar as a state bank bought dollars at a flat rate of 114.90 rupees, dealers said.
Nandalal Weerasinghe, chief economist at the central bank, told Reuters the central bank had mopped up $267 million since the end of the war to maintain exchange rate stability.
Currency dealers said exporter conversions, inflows from remittances, foreign buying of government securities, and donor funds for war-displaced people were seen in the market.
The interbank lending rate or call money rate edged down to 10.085 percent from Thursday's 10.134 percent.
* Market sees net foreign outflow of 119.8 million rupees
* High expectations on IMF loan moves market-brokers
* Bourse at new 9-mo high with significant turnover
* Cenbank mops up $267 million from mkt after war
By Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO, June 15 - Sri Lankan shares <.CSE> rose on Monday to a new nine-month high led by foreign buying of bluechips on an expected IMF loan approval and continued local purchases of plantation and hotel shares.
The rupee closed flat as a state bank bought dollars.
The Colombo All-Share Price Index rose 1.4 percent or 31.50 points to 2286.12, its highest close since Sept. 16. "It was a very active market," said Shivantha Meepage, a research analyst at Acuity Stockbrokers. "There is high hope of Sri Lanka getting the IMF loan soon. Foreigners bought bluechips, while retail investors bought plantation and hotel shares."
The central bank on Wednesday said Sri Lanka's request for a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan is expected to be approved by the end of June. [ID:nCOL430797] The IMF has yet to comment.
Analysts say foreign funds have been slow to come to the market, which has been driven higher by retail buyers on positive sentiments since the war ended on May 18.
Net foreign inflows had been 1.4 billion rupees before the end of war, but have turned to a net outflow of 337.8 million rupees on Monday including a 119.8 million rupee outflow. ------------------------------------------------------------
For Q+A on post-war foreign share buying see [ID:nCOL8675] ------------------------------------------------------------ High oil prices, which go along with synthetic rubber prices, and high tea prices pushed up plantation shares, analysts said.
Oil eased to around $71 a barrel on Monday, retreating from a near eight-month high last week. [ID:nLF513583]
Sri Lanka's average total tea price has jumped around 22 percent to 342 rupees in May from January on high global demand.
The bourse has risen around 20 percent since the government declared victory in the 25-year war and is up 52.1 percent so far this year on post-war optimism.
Top conglomerate John Keells Holdings rose 3.23 percent to 120 rupees, calculated on a weighted average, while Sri Lanka Telecom gained 2.38 percent to 43 rupees. Kotagala Plantation rose 15 percent to 32.50 rupees and the plantation sub-sector index <.CSEPL> gained 12 percent.
In the hotel sector, Confifi Hotels closed 9.1 percent firmer at 113.50 rupees.
The turnover was 1.19 billion rupees , more that double last year's daily average of 464 million rupees.
The rupee closed flat at 114.90/95 a dollar as a state bank bought dollars at a flat rate of 114.90 rupees, dealers said.
Nandalal Weerasinghe, chief economist at the central bank, told Reuters the central bank had mopped up $267 million since the end of the war to maintain exchange rate stability.
Currency dealers said exporter conversions, inflows from remittances, foreign buying of government securities, and donor funds for war-displaced people were seen in the market.
The interbank lending rate or call money rate edged down to 10.085 percent from Thursday's 10.134 percent.
Youth 'disappear' from IDP camps
[BBC Sinhala Service ]
An international award winning human rights activist in Sri Lanka says that nearly 20-30 youth have been disappearing from camps in Vavuniya daily.
But Sri Lanka government rejects the accusation.
Sunila Abeysekara told BBC Sandeshaya that rights activists have received credible reports of regular abductions in the camps.
"We accept that the government has the right to search the camps for security reasons. But our concern is that there is no formal registration process," she said.
She says it is reminiscent of the 'era of terror' in late 80s when the state security crushed an armed uprising by the Sinhala youth led by JVP.
'Era of terror'
"We are already familiar with the pattern. Our information says that former LTTE cadres and members of other militant groups -hooded informants - point to the youth in the camps and then they were taken away in the night".
Minister says only those who admit to be LTTE members are taken away
Ms. Abeysekara received a UN human rights award from Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1999. She was also honoured for her work by the Human Rights Watch last year.
Activists are seriously concerned that the government has failed to provide a list of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Vavuniya camps, she says.
It is expected that nearly 300,000 IDPs are in camps in northern Sri Lanka.
Human rights groups and the United Nations have called for more access to the camps but the government rejects the call citing security reasons.
'Hooded informants'
"There are reports that many people were arrested and disappeared while coming to Vavuniya from Vanni," Sunila Abeysekara said.
We are already familiar with the pattern. Our information says that former LTTE cadres and members of other militant groups -hooded informants - point to the youth in the camps and then they were taken away in the night
Sunila Abeysekara
Quoting relatives of the disappeared, Ms. Abeysekara said the abduction in the camps is happening with the blessing of the security forces that guard the camps.
But the government has rejected the accusations.
Resettlement minister Risath Bathiuddeen told BBC Sandeshaya that only those who admit to be LTTE members were taken to detention camps.
"They are taken to rehabilitation camps by the ministry of justice. The relatives of those cadres are informed of their whereabouts," he said.
He also rejected Ms. Abeysekara's claims that the IDPs are not registered by the authorities.
None of these claims cannot be independently verified as only journalists on guided tours are allowed in camps by the government.
An international award winning human rights activist in Sri Lanka says that nearly 20-30 youth have been disappearing from camps in Vavuniya daily.
But Sri Lanka government rejects the accusation.
Sunila Abeysekara told BBC Sandeshaya that rights activists have received credible reports of regular abductions in the camps.
"We accept that the government has the right to search the camps for security reasons. But our concern is that there is no formal registration process," she said.
She says it is reminiscent of the 'era of terror' in late 80s when the state security crushed an armed uprising by the Sinhala youth led by JVP.
'Era of terror'
"We are already familiar with the pattern. Our information says that former LTTE cadres and members of other militant groups -hooded informants - point to the youth in the camps and then they were taken away in the night".
Minister says only those who admit to be LTTE members are taken away
Ms. Abeysekara received a UN human rights award from Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1999. She was also honoured for her work by the Human Rights Watch last year.
Activists are seriously concerned that the government has failed to provide a list of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Vavuniya camps, she says.
It is expected that nearly 300,000 IDPs are in camps in northern Sri Lanka.
Human rights groups and the United Nations have called for more access to the camps but the government rejects the call citing security reasons.
'Hooded informants'
"There are reports that many people were arrested and disappeared while coming to Vavuniya from Vanni," Sunila Abeysekara said.
We are already familiar with the pattern. Our information says that former LTTE cadres and members of other militant groups -hooded informants - point to the youth in the camps and then they were taken away in the night
Sunila Abeysekara
Quoting relatives of the disappeared, Ms. Abeysekara said the abduction in the camps is happening with the blessing of the security forces that guard the camps.
But the government has rejected the accusations.
Resettlement minister Risath Bathiuddeen told BBC Sandeshaya that only those who admit to be LTTE members were taken to detention camps.
"They are taken to rehabilitation camps by the ministry of justice. The relatives of those cadres are informed of their whereabouts," he said.
He also rejected Ms. Abeysekara's claims that the IDPs are not registered by the authorities.
None of these claims cannot be independently verified as only journalists on guided tours are allowed in camps by the government.
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