[UN News Centre]

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today reiterated his strong concerns over “unacceptably high” civilian casualties in the conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and Tamil rebels, while rejecting in the strongest terms any figure attributed to the United Nations. “I categorically reject – repeat, categorically – any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately under-estimated any figures,” the Secretary-General underscored. “Let me also say, whatever the total, the casualties in the conflict were unacceptably high – as I have also said repeatedly,” he added.

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[The Times]

Ban Ki Moon the Secretary-General of the United Nations, visited Sri Lanka last week. He knew from his officials that at least 20,000 civilians had been killed by Sri Lankan troops in the offensive against the Tamil Tigers. Mr Ban never mentioned this figure to his Sri Lankan interlocutors. He saw, while travelling by air over a supposed “no-fire” zone, the evidence of a massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians caught between the army and the insurgents. Yet he has still not confirmed the authenticity of photographs taken from the same helicopter setting out that scene of carnage and mass makeshift graves.

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[Sky News]

There are numerous reports of sexual assaults in the government-run camps, and claims that groups of young men are being rounded up and taken away. United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon will demand unfettered access to the camps during his visit to the country, as well as access to other areas which have been off-limits to aid workers and journalists for months. More than 40 camps have been set up to cope with more than 200,000 people left homeless by the long-running conflict. The people inside the camps are kept behind barbed wire and are not allowed to leave.

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[ Inner City Press ]

In Colombo, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss has acknowledged that at least 400 civilians were killed over the weekend in northern Sri Lanka. Weiss claimed that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been doing everything possible. But when asked, repeatedly, if he was calling for a cease-fire, Ban Ki-moon did not. Ban was invited, how ever cynically, to visit the country, and his spokesperson claimed that if he thought his visit could save civilian lives he would go. But he didn’t go, nor announce that he would. And over the weekend, the government shelled the conflict zone and killed 400 civilians.

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[Inner City Press]

Despite having been sent as the UN’s envoy to the “bloodbath on the beach” in Sri Lanka, Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar is now reluctant to give the Security Council even a closed door briefing on the crisis, sources told Inner City Press late Tuesday. One well-placed Council diplomat said that despite all 15 members, including China and Russia, agreeing to an “informal interactive dialogue” with Mr. Nambiar, who has just returned via India from three days in Sri Lanka, they were told that Nambiar views the matter as “too sensitive” even for discussion behind closed doors. Nambiar argued that as a “mediator,” what he discussed with Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers was “confidential,” even from the Security Council.

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[Inner City Press]

With even the UN now speaking of a “bloodbath on the beach” in Northern Sri Lanka, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has quietly sent his titular chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian diplomat, to the region to try what the UN is calling “quiet diplomacy.” Some in Ban’s inner circle wonder if it is wise to send an Indian for the job, given India’s large Tamil population and response to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. But perhaps that, along with Nambiar’s ties with the Chinese, is what has made Sri Lanka feel comfortable.

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[Reuters]

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Monday for a “suspension in fighting” between the Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger separatists to allow civilians to escape. “There is an urgent need to bring this conflict to an end without any further unnecessary loss of civilian life and destruction of Sri Lankan society,” Ban told reporters. “The U.N. deplores the increasing casualties among civilians trapped in the intense fighting … and would strongly support a suspension in fighting for the purpose of allowing safe passage of (the) civilian population trying to flee the conflict,” Ban said.

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[Times Online]

Sir, I agree that there should be an immediate, unconditional ceasefire by both sides in Sri Lanka (Bronwen Maddox, World Briefing, Feb 12). However, I also believe that the time has come for the UN Secretary- General, Ban Ki Moon, to demand that a United Nations peacekeeping mission be allowed access to the country to avoid a civilian bloodbath.

Reports from the country say that the remaining doctors and medical staff in the LTTE (Tamil Tiger)-controlled area in the north of Sri Lanka have been ordered to leave. The Sri Lankan Government has urged Tamil civilians to come over to its side, but there is a natural reluctance and fear of such a move.

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[Inner City Press]

As bloodshed and civilian casualties mount in Sri Lanka, at the UN in New York Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by Inner City Press why, unlike in Gaza, the Congo and elsewhere, he has not called for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka. Mr. Ban responded at some length, reading from notes. In essence he said, because Sri Lanka is not on the agenda of the Security Council, he cannot call for a ceasefire. Video here, from Minute 46:31.

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[CNN]

Mounting violence between rebel fighters and government troops along northern Sri Lanka has prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for the safety of civilians as humanitarian groups try to provide aid to some 250,000 people trapped in the region. “The secretary-general is deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of civilians caught in intensified fighting in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka,” a spokesman for Ban said in a statement Monday. Ban called on the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers to respect “no-fire zones” and civilians areas, including schools, hospitals and humanitarian posts. He also asked both sides to allow the 250,000 civilians trapped in the fighting to move to “safe areas.”

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