Amid growing outrage at Sri Lankan General Shavendra Silva, accused of war crimes, becoming a UN Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping Operations and at Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s refusal to do or say anything about it, Inner City Press has learned more details of how this "travesty" came about.

Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky on January 30 told Inner City Press to "ask the member states in the Asian Group" — so Inner City Press did.

  It emerges that there was no [...]

In an example of UN "bluewashing" of a an alleged war criminal, Sri Lanka is bragging that its Major General Shavendra Silva has been selected for the "UN Secretary General’s special Advisory group on Peace Keeping Operations," along with former Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette and former head of UN Peacekeeping Jean Marie Guehenno.

  Acts of Shavendra Silva’s battalion in 2009 are described in the UN’s own Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka, and lawsuits have been filed against [...]

Touting the rule of law at the UN on Thursday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon claimed to oppose amnesties and support international prosecutions, saying that people want accountability and transparency.

  But after Ban spoke with Yemen strongman Ali Saleh on November 23, Inner City Press asked him if he had raised to Saleh his push for the immunity he is now in the process of obtaining. Ban replied that "I have not discussed in detail on that matter." If he opposed [...]

The International Monetary Fund under Christine Lagarde has become even less transparent, answering fewer and fewer press questions.

  During the IMF briefing on January 12, the first one in four weeks, Inner City Press submitted four questions, including this: "On Greece, please describe the IMF’s engagement with hedge funds asking them to accept a hair cut: are hedge funds reacting differently than banks and what is the IMF doing?"

  IMF spokesman Gerry Rice did not posed the hedge fund [...]

As the UN praises its own response to the earthquake in Haiti two years ago and even the cholera epidemic the UN alleged brought after that, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky on Tuesday could not say if even one of the 114 Sri Lanka soldiers repatriated for pedophilia had been disciplined.

  As stated in a report prepared for the UN Human Rights Council, 111 soldiers and 3 officers from MINUSTAH’s Sri Lankan battalion were repatriated due to allegations [...]

With the UN dodging questions about allowing ethnic cleansing in Pibor, South Sudan, Inner City Press on January 6 asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky whether the budget cuts Ban brags about were responsible for the UN’s failure to record or broadcast questions asked the day before about the slaughter:

Inner City Press: yesterday when Mr. Ladsous finally did do a stakeout, there was no microphone for questions, so that when you watch it, all you have is Mr. [...]

The "five year rule" propounded by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, under which high official should serve no more than five years in a particular post, is causing a game of musical chairs.

  Senior adviser Nicholas Haysom, for example, is said by Inner City Press’ multiple sources to have been offered the Deputy envoy post at the UN Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA. He had previously been in contention but not chosen for the top envoy post for the UN in [...]

"Killing Fields of Sri Lanka" has finally been watched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, according to a one-word response provided to Inner City Press on December 28 by Ban’s Office of the Spokesperson.

  The documentary depicts UN culpability in the abandonment and killing of civilians in Northern Sri Lanka in 2009, when Ban was, as now, Secretary General; it reports on the so-called White Flag killings of Tamil Tiger leaders in whose surrender Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar [...]

One week ago about Sri Lanka, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "noted that the report of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was tabled in parliament today and welcomed that it has been made public. The United Nations will be studying the report closely."

  After a week of silence from Ban, even while the Sri Lankan government announced it would take legal action against non-governmental organizations which have joined the criticism for the LLRC report as no leading [...]

When Inner City Press asked the UN about the Sri Lankan government’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report, the response was that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would comment on it when it was released.

  After it was released, with the claim that the government did not target civilians, Inner City Press at noon on December 16 asked Ban’s Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq for comment. It took the UN nine hours to issue what many view as the quietest of diplomacy. [...]

Now that the Sri Lankan government’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report is public, with its claim that civilians were not targeted, Inner City Press on Friday asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s associate spokesman Farhan Haq for the UN’s response to the report, and any moves for accountability. Video here, from Minute 8:29.

  Haq said "we’ll need to study" the LLRC report and that Ban’s UN "may respond in due course." He said, "We are continuing with our efforts [...]

When High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay appeared at the UN on Friday, Inner City Press asked her about inaction on the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka, including the performance of the UN and certain high UN officials. Inner City Press also asked how many civilians she believed had been killed in Sri Lanka, and if she was seeking a second terms of HCHR.

Pillay spoke generally that there should be accountability, adding that she is postponing a visit [...]

When the Asia Society scheduled screenings of Killing Fields of Sri Lanka and the government’s response for December 6, it was said that the country’s Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona would be present to answer questions.

  But in the run-up to the screenings, it was alternately said that Kohona was tied up in meeting at the UN — hard to believe, given that the only General Assembly meeting of the day, about the Law of the Sea, ended [...]

After Sri Lanka’s special envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe met Wednesday morning with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked him how the meeting had gone. Video here and below.

"Constructive," he called it, saying that the government’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission report, due November 15, will be presented nearly a year later in October 2012 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Inner City Press asked Sri Lanka had again complained about the transmission to Geneva of the UN [...]

When Marzuki Darusman spoke to the media at the UN on Thursday, his biography as read out by the UN did not include his recent work on Sri Lanka. Inner City Press asked him about what the Sri Lankan government has taken to calling the "Darusman report." Video here, from Minute 17:52.

  Darusman said, "it is a UN report, no less, no more," coming from a "Panel of Experts instituted by the Secretary General" Ban Ki-moon. "Therefore it can only [...]