When Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona left their encounter with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday night, they paused at the elevator speaking to and about Mr. Ban.
As caught on television by Inner City Campaign and put online here, Kohona told Rajapaksa, about Ban, "He has already seen the picture we sent him.
As caught on television by Inner City Campaign and put online here, Kohona told Rajapaksa, about Ban, "He has already seen the picture we sent him."
This would look to relate to the pro-Rajapaksa government video "Lies Agreed To," itself a purported rebuttal of the Channel 4 documentary "Killing Fields of Sri Lanka."
Along with depicting Rajapaksa government war crimes, including a word of the White Flag murders involving Palitha Kohona and Ban`s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, "Killing Fields" criticizes the UN`s and Ban`s performance.
But Ban`s spokesman Martin Nesirky had repeatedly told Inner City Press that Ban has yet not watch Killing Fields, despite long ago being granted a DVD of the documentary.
On September 22, Nesirky`s office told Inner City Press, that the "Secretary-General has yet to see the documentary "Killing Fields of Sri Lanka", but has been thoroughly briefed on the film`s contents." Now Kohona says Ban "has already seen the picture we sent him" - the rebuttal.
Similarly, as reported by Inner City Press, decisions to not show Killing Fields within the UN but to screen "Lies Agreed To" along with Kohona and his Deputy Shavendra Silva, were taken unilaterally by Giampaolo Pioli who accepting money from Kohona, for property.
The UN briefing room, and apparently Ban Ki-moon himself, saw the government`s rebuttal without seeing the underlying documentary movie about Rajapaksa - and perhaps Nambiar`s - war crimes. Watch this YouTube video, and this site.
Footnotes on footage:How was this video filmed, and what will the UN say about it? After the initial photo op, cameramen are usually shepherded off the North Lawn building`s third floor.
But this time, the Sri Lankan national UN Security officer seen directly behind Rajapaksa in the footage arranged for the 3 other photographers, all Sri Lankan, to rest up at the entrance to Ban`s office. Inner City Press stayed as well.
When ten minutes later the meeting ended, Ban escorted Rajapaksa, Kohona, Peiris et al. to the elevator, and Inner City Press filmed. There Kohona said the above to Rajapaksa, about Ban, well out of the hearing of Ban`s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, who stopped Ban on his way back in to the waiting Montenegro delegation and asked him questions. But what did Ban tell him? And what if anything will Nesirky say? more updates on innercitypress via twitter
That UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon runs scared, as one of his staffers puts it, more on Sri Lanka than other countries was again on display, but not to be photographed, on July 5. Ban was to meet with Ranil Wickremesinghe, described in Ban`s schedule as Leader of the Opposition.
But when Inner City Press asked to see the photo opportunity at the first of Ban`s meeting with Ranil, the double standards began.
As the film Sri Lanka Killing Fields was screened Tuesday on the westward face of First Avenue in New York, across the street at the UN Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon`s spokesman Martin Nesirky if Ban has yet seen the film, and for the UN`s response to its determination that Ban has not implemented the passport of his own Board of Experts on war crimes in the country.
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 11 - While the UN congratulates itself on its reactions in Haiti, it dismisses all criticism, including from Haitian women's NGOs, and has refused so far to remove the diplomatic immunity (or impunity) of a UN staff members whom a Haitian judge wants to wonder about the hanging death of a Haitian teenager inside a UN base.
UN Won't Disclose Ban's 1 on 1 Meetings This Month, Presidents Beyond Sri Lanka?
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 30, 2010 - While the UN issued summaries of about 100 meetings between countries' leaders and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during this month's General Debate, for between v and ten of these meetings there was an extra one on one session which was not included in the UN's summaries, it has emerged.
