Holmes, UN's smokescreen to Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings?
Public statements made by UN officials during media stakeouts and
briefings, Wikileaks exposures, and the testimony of twelve UN field
staff reported earlier in TamilNet provide a blue-print to the strategy
adopted by the UN to allow Sri Lanka to defeat the Tigers, and to ignore
the mounting numbers of civilian casualties. This feature catalogues
the statements from UN's former humanitarian chief, John Holmes, as he
attempts to provide diplomatic cover to the slaughter taking place in
Mu'l'livaaykkaal, repeatedly relying on Colombo's assurances on not
using heavy weapons, and hesitating to provide casualty figures, a
conduct comport with the "internal" strategy revealed by the then
President of the United Nations Security Council, Yukio Takasu, that
gave primacy to the need to eliminate the “terrorist LTTE …which had
broken several ceasefire agreements."
While the recent Petrie report accused the UN of "massive and system wide failure to prevent the slaughter of an estimated 40,000 ethnic Tamils in five short months," Holmes defended UN’s actions and criticized the report saying the UN faced "some very difficult dilemmas" at the time and could be criticized for the decisions it had taken, adding, "[b]ut the idea that if we behaved differently, the Sri Lankan government would have behaved differently I think is not one that is easy to reconcile with the reality at the time."
Yukio Takasu, President UN Security Council 2009
John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Takasu's February 20, 2009 media stakeout after a Security Council discussions (Click here, @12:20)
reflects the mindset of the key UN policy makers for Sri Lanka action.
Takasu says, inter-alia, "humanitarian situation is part of a bigger
picture which involves political and security situation...the situation
is complicated...many ceasefires were held which were broken by the
LTTE...Ceasefire is considered favorable to the terrorist [LTTE]
group...They use the humanitarian opportunity to promote military
offensive...you can't just ask the Government [Sri Lanka] to stop...."
Viewed
through this prism of alleged UN's internal policy to facilitate
military defeat of the LTTE even at high cost of civilian lives, Holmes
subsequent statements reflect a clear motive behind the UN's inaction
during the five months following Takasu's comment.
The two high level UN officials, John Holmes and Vijay Nambiar, appeared to have shouldered the implementation of the UN strategy from New York, and country level managers, Neil Buhne and other UN operatives Philippe Duamelle, Amin Awad and Andy Brooks provided the institutional cover to facilitate the civilian massacre and large scale starvation.
John Holmes appeared on five occasions to brief UN press during the last four months of the war, from February to May 2009. Innercity Press (ICP) and a few journalists have continued to raise troubling questions on civilian casualties and the inaction of the UN.
Holmes refuses to provide any estimate of the casualty figures even though ICP leaked a UN internal document in March-2009 of more than 2800 deaths due to shelling by Sri Lanka military.
The two high level UN officials, John Holmes and Vijay Nambiar, appeared to have shouldered the implementation of the UN strategy from New York, and country level managers, Neil Buhne and other UN operatives Philippe Duamelle, Amin Awad and Andy Brooks provided the institutional cover to facilitate the civilian massacre and large scale starvation.
John Holmes appeared on five occasions to brief UN press during the last four months of the war, from February to May 2009. Innercity Press (ICP) and a few journalists have continued to raise troubling questions on civilian casualties and the inaction of the UN.
Holmes refuses to provide any estimate of the casualty figures even though ICP leaked a UN internal document in March-2009 of more than 2800 deaths due to shelling by Sri Lanka military.
In an attempt to highlight the evasive answers from Holmes on why UN has not been able to provide casualty figures, a French journalist in April 29th briefing 2009, questions Holmes on why the UN has not at least provided a “soft-figure” on civilian deaths so that international opinion could be mobilized UN-Holmes. Holmes declines to answer.
UN's Petrie report on
UN's inaction during the last stages of the war, documents Holmes and
Nambiar jointly pressuring Navi Pillay of UNHCR to desist from
publishing estimated casualty figures that would put UN in to a
“difficult terrain."
Regarding the number of civilians who remained in the LTTE controlled territory, the estimates provided by Holmes were 70k (by GoSL), 200k (by UN), and more than 300k (by Tamil sources). In Wikileaks (Colombo Cable Jan-09-2009) then-Ambassador Blake quotes 300k civilians trapped behind LTTE lines, and confirms the GoSL’s intention to use food as an incentive to extract people out of LTTE area.
In addition the UNITAR satellite based analysis of human concentration in the Mu'l'livaaykkaal area implied much larger civilian population than GoSL figures. Despite no concrete pressure was brought on GoSL by UN to help deliver commensurate quantity of food and medicine.
Regarding the number of civilians who remained in the LTTE controlled territory, the estimates provided by Holmes were 70k (by GoSL), 200k (by UN), and more than 300k (by Tamil sources). In Wikileaks (Colombo Cable Jan-09-2009) then-Ambassador Blake quotes 300k civilians trapped behind LTTE lines, and confirms the GoSL’s intention to use food as an incentive to extract people out of LTTE area.
In addition the UNITAR satellite based analysis of human concentration in the Mu'l'livaaykkaal area implied much larger civilian population than GoSL figures. Despite no concrete pressure was brought on GoSL by UN to help deliver commensurate quantity of food and medicine.
Several
UNfield staff who resigned from UN in protest subsequently. Here the
UN, under the leadership of Holmes (OCHA), was accused by UN's own
staffers as an ineffective spectator to widespread starvation and failed
to pressure the Tamil population in the LTTE controlled area. The
staffers also criticized UN conveys delivering cricket bats and chalk
boards to the starving civilians.
Another sinister motive in down playing the population figure is related to the pending large scale massacre of the civilians in Mullivaikal.
In all press briefing Holmes provides benefit of doubt to the GoSL, and attributes responsibility to LTTE for keeping civilians against their will, commented a Tamil activist who reviewed the briefings by Holmes.
Noting that Tamil civilians who came out of the Mu'l'livaaykkaal area were brought to the “internment camps” but Tamil civilians who lived outside the “trapped” area were also rounded up by the military and brought to the camps, a journalist inquires about potential war-crime because of the ethnicity-based round up. John Holmes says he was not aware of any large scale round up as such, but then continues to justify why it is acceptable because the whole region was a conflict zone.
"When an institution, whose mandate is humanitarian work and which is trusted to protect civilians, exhibits reckless disregard to human life and deceptively facilitates political goals of a failing state like Sri Lanka which has a mono-ethnic military, then complicit officials need to be identified and reprimanded," a Tamil activist commented.
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Chronology:
Related Articles:
05.10.12 Creating historical fiction on Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre
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