The UN’s long delayed report on accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka is now slated to be handed to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on April 12, sources tell Inner City Press. The report will not be made public at that time, they say, and perhaps it never will.
Inner City Press has repeatedly asked Ban’s spokespeople to explain Ban’s statements in December and January that his panel could travel to Sri Lanka.
Likewise, when Inner City Press asked spokesman Martin Nesirky if the Sri Lankan delegation in March, including Attorney General Mohan Peiris and reported war criminal Shavendra Silva, had met with Ban’s Panel and not just Ban himself, Nesirky said no, you know it is no, you were there.
But over the weekend, Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs G.L. Peiris said that the denied meeting did in fact take place, including Ban’s head of Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe, who asked that it remain secret.
Inner City Press told a senior Ban administration official about the comments of G.L. Peiris on April 11. “I have very surprised they are saying that,” the Ban official said.
Surprised because the meeting didn’t happen? Or because both sides promised it would be secret?
“I am just surprised.”
Also present during the March meeting(s) was Sri Lanka Permanent Representative, and dual Australian citizen, Palitha Kohona. A filing now confirmed received by the International Criminal Court names Kohona as a target for investigation, as well as describing the role of Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar in the co-called white flag murders of surrenderees.
Ban’s deputy spokesman Farhan Haq sent an email, on the record, that there has been no formal filing with the ICC. Even now that receipt has been confirmed by the ICC, there has been no subsequent statement by Haq’s or Ban’s wider office.
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