Radhika Coomaraswamy's Email to UN Staff on Channel 4 Video
UN Special Rep's Website - It's All about Radhika!
Is UN Special Rep using her office for personal vendettas, self promotion?
By Hassina Leelarathna
It was bound to happen sooner or later: Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy has thrust herself into the fray, using her office to legitimize and give publicity to the airing of controversial Channel 4 ‘Killing Fields’ video on Australian TV. Thereby she has opened the door to closer scrutiny as to whether she’s doing any good as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict or if she’s using the office for self-promotion and personal vendettas.
A synopsis of the video aired by ABC in Australia the previous night was included in the ‘Daily Press Review’ emailed to United Nations staff on July 5 by Ms. Coomaraswamy’s office. (See full text below.) The synopsis was headed by a short blurb, apparently written by Ms. Coomaraswamy herself or her staff that states matter-of-factly: “A British television documentary, aired on ABC's Four Corners program last night, showed evidence of rape, torture and murder of civilians during the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil tigers.” The body of the synopsis is all Channel 4’s (and ABC’s) own lengthy advertisement which attempts to add scientific credibility to the video by dubbing it a ‘forensic’ investigation.
It proclaims, among other things, that: “The program provides evidence that while the 'Tigers' used civilians as human shields, the Government forces repeatedly shelled civilians who had been offered sanctuary in "no fire zones."
When asked for his comments, Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq described the communication as “an internal document compiled by Radhika Coomaraswamy’s office and does not reflect the views of Ms. Coomaraswamy or her office.”
Referring to the lengthy Channel 4 advertisement included in the document as ‘information,’ Mr. Haq said it did not imply an ‘endorsement’ of the video.
“Including information about the Killing Fields documentary in a press summary does not imply any endorsement of the film; in fact, none of the information presented in the press review implies any endorsement of the items contained in it,” he said in an email.
He added that ‘Ms. Coomaraswamy's statements and reports are focused on her subject area, children and armed conflict.’
Some of the email recipients disagree and are questioning Ms. Coomaraswamy’s motivation for publicizing the screening of the disputed video in Australia when it had already aired in the US. They also don’t see a correlation between her subject area and the ‘Killing Fields’ – which is a generalized litany of war crimes against the Sri Lankan government. In fact, if her interest was to draw attention to her subject area – children and armed conflict – this was definitely the wrong pew: the LTTE’s use of child soldiers and their numerous against children, including rape, is not part of the Killing Field’s footage. There is no reference to children in the Channel 4 advertisement that Ms. Coomaraswamy forwarded.
All of which points to Coomaraswamy’s email as being a provocative extension of her turbulent relationship with Sri Lanka where her name has been mired in NGO scandals and conflicts and she has been accused of trying long and hard to get international intervention in Sri Lankan by invoking the notorious Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine (seen in action today in Libya).
Coming as it does from the world’s highest international body, the email will serve only as a propaganda bonanza for Channel 4, and other such detractors of Sri Lanka, with no impact on Coomaraswamy’s subject area, viz., children caught up in armed conflicts.
In fact, glancing at the UN website dedicated to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict one gets the impression that this office is all about Radhika Coomaraswamy and that it deals with the subject of children and armed conflict but minimally, and selectively. In the 13 press releases Coomaraswamy has issued this year, there is some boiler plate angst (‘I am deeply troubled”) and hand wringing over isolated suicide bombers but only vague allusions to NATO and US aerial bombardments that have killed and maimed dozens of children in Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
“Children killed in Afghanistan by air strikes is a cause of serious concern,” [sic] she states in a March 3, 2011 press release following the killing of nine children in Kunar Province on March 1. Gen. Petreaus and President Obama were forced to apologize to placate growing anger among Afghans. Coomaraswamy’s press release said: “ While welcoming General Petraeus’ apology for the most recent incident and his commitment to investigate, SRSG Coomaraswamy urged a thorough review of procedures to ensure that all necessary precautions are taken to prevent children from becoming casualties in the complex and volatile situation in Afghanistan.’ Yet, in that same month, there were several other NATO bombings that killed children in Afghanistan but no condemnation or expression of concern from the office of the special representative.
On May 30, in Helmand Province, a nighttime raid by coalition forces left 14 civilians dead, 12 of them children. The incident was reported by, yes, Australia’s ABC News. Since Coomaraswamy obviously monitors Australian TV, she could not have missed it. According to the ABC report, “the relatives of some of the children who were killed actually took the bodies of these children to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and put them on display outside the governor's compound there so that local officials and the media could see what had happened.” Yet, in her press release dated June 2, she focused on three children killed in Syria but there was no mention of that horrific mass killing of children by the coalition forces in Afghanistan.
What about the children of Libya where armed conflict has been in full swing for several months? Coomaraswamy issued a release in March telling “ the Government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, pro-government forces, and opposition groups of their obligation under international law to protect children during armed clashes and that recruitment and use of children may constitute a war crime.” Since then, there have been numerous reports of child casualties resulting from NATO bombings that have somehow eluded the Special Representative’s concern. They include: the bombing deaths of Ghadaffi’s three grandchildren, a June 23 NATO missile strike on a two-storey block of flats in the Al-Arada residential area of Tripoli that reportedly killed nine, including a woman, a nine-month-old baby and two toddlers, and a June 24 NATO strike on a compound west of Tripoli that killed 19, including 8 children.
As for reports on Children and the Armed Conflict by the Office of the Special Representative
to the General Assembly, the last one found online is dated August 2010. Then there's the UN Secretary General's annual report on the subject of Children and Armed Conflict, for January-December 2010. A bare 428 words (out of 55 pages of text) were dedicated to Afghanistan, with a reference to an 'Action Plan" for the prevention of underage recruitment into the Afghan National Security Forces signed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zalmai Rassoul, and my Special Representative for Afghanistan, and witnessed by the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. No mention, again, of any of the atrocities against Afghan children by US-led coalition forces.
As telling as what is absent from the Special Representative’s website is what is present: a surfeit of self-promoting photos of the globe-trotting Radhika Coomaraswamy, more like her personal FB wall.
In the deafening silence that Coomaraswamy has maintained over the plight of the helpless and voiceless population she is supposed to be protecting, her hurry to stick the Channel 4 video under the noses of the UN staff is a jarring witness to her pursuit of interests way outside of her subject matter.
Sri Lanka’s Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona, who is currently in Sri Lanka said he will review the incident when he gets back to New York. The matter needs to go beyond a standard complaint to the UN Secretary General’s office, at a level that transcends the discord over the Channel 4 video.
Someone has to stand up for all the children caught up in the hell of today’s armed conflicts, not just the ones that are in the radar of Ms. Coomaraswamy’s narrow self interests.
Hassina Leelarathna is a freelance journalist living in California. She may be contacted by email: [email protected]
By Hassina Leelarathna
It was bound to happen sooner or later: Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy has thrust herself into the fray, using her office to legitimize and give publicity to the airing of controversial Channel 4 ‘Killing Fields’ video on Australian TV. Thereby she has opened the door to closer scrutiny as to whether she’s doing any good as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict or if she’s using the office for self-promotion and personal vendettas.
A synopsis of the video aired by ABC in Australia the previous night was included in the ‘Daily Press Review’ emailed to United Nations staff on July 5 by Ms. Coomaraswamy’s office. (See full text below.) The synopsis was headed by a short blurb, apparently written by Ms. Coomaraswamy herself or her staff that states matter-of-factly: “A British television documentary, aired on ABC's Four Corners program last night, showed evidence of rape, torture and murder of civilians during the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil tigers.” The body of the synopsis is all Channel 4’s (and ABC’s) own lengthy advertisement which attempts to add scientific credibility to the video by dubbing it a ‘forensic’ investigation.
It proclaims, among other things, that: “The program provides evidence that while the 'Tigers' used civilians as human shields, the Government forces repeatedly shelled civilians who had been offered sanctuary in "no fire zones."
When asked for his comments, Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq described the communication as “an internal document compiled by Radhika Coomaraswamy’s office and does not reflect the views of Ms. Coomaraswamy or her office.”
Referring to the lengthy Channel 4 advertisement included in the document as ‘information,’ Mr. Haq said it did not imply an ‘endorsement’ of the video.
“Including information about the Killing Fields documentary in a press summary does not imply any endorsement of the film; in fact, none of the information presented in the press review implies any endorsement of the items contained in it,” he said in an email.
He added that ‘Ms. Coomaraswamy's statements and reports are focused on her subject area, children and armed conflict.’
Some of the email recipients disagree and are questioning Ms. Coomaraswamy’s motivation for publicizing the screening of the disputed video in Australia when it had already aired in the US. They also don’t see a correlation between her subject area and the ‘Killing Fields’ – which is a generalized litany of war crimes against the Sri Lankan government. In fact, if her interest was to draw attention to her subject area – children and armed conflict – this was definitely the wrong pew: the LTTE’s use of child soldiers and their numerous against children, including rape, is not part of the Killing Field’s footage. There is no reference to children in the Channel 4 advertisement that Ms. Coomaraswamy forwarded.
All of which points to Coomaraswamy’s email as being a provocative extension of her turbulent relationship with Sri Lanka where her name has been mired in NGO scandals and conflicts and she has been accused of trying long and hard to get international intervention in Sri Lankan by invoking the notorious Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine (seen in action today in Libya).
Coming as it does from the world’s highest international body, the email will serve only as a propaganda bonanza for Channel 4, and other such detractors of Sri Lanka, with no impact on Coomaraswamy’s subject area, viz., children caught up in armed conflicts.
In fact, glancing at the UN website dedicated to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict one gets the impression that this office is all about Radhika Coomaraswamy and that it deals with the subject of children and armed conflict but minimally, and selectively. In the 13 press releases Coomaraswamy has issued this year, there is some boiler plate angst (‘I am deeply troubled”) and hand wringing over isolated suicide bombers but only vague allusions to NATO and US aerial bombardments that have killed and maimed dozens of children in Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
“Children killed in Afghanistan by air strikes is a cause of serious concern,” [sic] she states in a March 3, 2011 press release following the killing of nine children in Kunar Province on March 1. Gen. Petreaus and President Obama were forced to apologize to placate growing anger among Afghans. Coomaraswamy’s press release said: “ While welcoming General Petraeus’ apology for the most recent incident and his commitment to investigate, SRSG Coomaraswamy urged a thorough review of procedures to ensure that all necessary precautions are taken to prevent children from becoming casualties in the complex and volatile situation in Afghanistan.’ Yet, in that same month, there were several other NATO bombings that killed children in Afghanistan but no condemnation or expression of concern from the office of the special representative.
On May 30, in Helmand Province, a nighttime raid by coalition forces left 14 civilians dead, 12 of them children. The incident was reported by, yes, Australia’s ABC News. Since Coomaraswamy obviously monitors Australian TV, she could not have missed it. According to the ABC report, “the relatives of some of the children who were killed actually took the bodies of these children to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and put them on display outside the governor's compound there so that local officials and the media could see what had happened.” Yet, in her press release dated June 2, she focused on three children killed in Syria but there was no mention of that horrific mass killing of children by the coalition forces in Afghanistan.
What about the children of Libya where armed conflict has been in full swing for several months? Coomaraswamy issued a release in March telling “ the Government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, pro-government forces, and opposition groups of their obligation under international law to protect children during armed clashes and that recruitment and use of children may constitute a war crime.” Since then, there have been numerous reports of child casualties resulting from NATO bombings that have somehow eluded the Special Representative’s concern. They include: the bombing deaths of Ghadaffi’s three grandchildren, a June 23 NATO missile strike on a two-storey block of flats in the Al-Arada residential area of Tripoli that reportedly killed nine, including a woman, a nine-month-old baby and two toddlers, and a June 24 NATO strike on a compound west of Tripoli that killed 19, including 8 children.
As for reports on Children and the Armed Conflict by the Office of the Special Representative
to the General Assembly, the last one found online is dated August 2010. Then there's the UN Secretary General's annual report on the subject of Children and Armed Conflict, for January-December 2010. A bare 428 words (out of 55 pages of text) were dedicated to Afghanistan, with a reference to an 'Action Plan" for the prevention of underage recruitment into the Afghan National Security Forces signed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zalmai Rassoul, and my Special Representative for Afghanistan, and witnessed by the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. No mention, again, of any of the atrocities against Afghan children by US-led coalition forces.
As telling as what is absent from the Special Representative’s website is what is present: a surfeit of self-promoting photos of the globe-trotting Radhika Coomaraswamy, more like her personal FB wall.
In the deafening silence that Coomaraswamy has maintained over the plight of the helpless and voiceless population she is supposed to be protecting, her hurry to stick the Channel 4 video under the noses of the UN staff is a jarring witness to her pursuit of interests way outside of her subject matter.
Sri Lanka’s Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona, who is currently in Sri Lanka said he will review the incident when he gets back to New York. The matter needs to go beyond a standard complaint to the UN Secretary General’s office, at a level that transcends the discord over the Channel 4 video.
Someone has to stand up for all the children caught up in the hell of today’s armed conflicts, not just the ones that are in the radar of Ms. Coomaraswamy’s narrow self interests.
Hassina Leelarathna is a freelance journalist living in California. She may be contacted by email: [email protected]
Text of Radhika Coomaraswamy's Email to UN staff
05 July 2011
OSRSG-CAAC Daily Press Review
ABC – Sri Lanka - 05 July - “A British television documentary, aired on ABC's Four Corners program last night, showed evidence of rape, torture and murder of civilians during the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil tigers. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3261819.htm
Reporter: Channel 4
Broadcast: 04/07/2011
Produced by the Channel 4 in Britain , the program forensically investigates allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed as Sri Lankan Government forces moved in to destroy the Tamil Tiger army. The program provides evidence that while the 'Tigers' used civilians as human shields, the Government forces repeatedly shelled civilians who had been offered sanctuary in "no fire zones". The Government of Sri Lanka denies this, questioning the numbers killed and the authenticity of the visual evidence. You can judge for yourself.
The program contains disturbing descriptions and footage of executions, atrocities and the shelling of civilians. It includes devastating new video evidence of war crimes. Some of this material was shot on video cameras; other scenes are taken from mobile phones used by Sri Lankan soldiers as trophy vision. Put together it creates one of the most confronting stories of war and conflict ever seen on Australian television.
The film goes to air as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faces growing criticism for refusing to launch a full independent investigation into "credible allegations" of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In June 2010, the UN chief asked a panel of experts to advise him on the evidence available relating to the conduct by both sides in the closing months of the war. In a report published in April this year, the panel of experts concluded that there was credible evidence that up to 40,000 people were killed in the final months of the civil war between the Tamil Tigers and Government forces.
The report called for the creation of an international mechanism to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and international human rights laws committed by Sri Lankan Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
This film provides powerful evidence that will lend new urgency to the panel's call for an international inquiry, including harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan Army video footage, and satellite imagery.
While the program clearly shows the brutality of Government forces, the film's producers also detail the horrific atrocities carried out by the Tamil Tigers, who used civilians as human shields. In one case, a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber detonates an explosive charge while standing in the middle of a "safe haven" area for other Tamils.
As one international legal expert explains, the behaviour of the 'Tigers' cannot be ignored:
"Crimes by one side do not begin to give a kind of carte blanche to the other side to break the rules as well."
However, in the end " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields" presents a damning account of the actions of Sri Lankan Government forces, in a war that the Government still insists was conducted with a policy of "Zero Civilian Casualties".
Presented by Kerry O'Brien, " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields" goes to air on Monday 4th July at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 5th July at 11.35pm. It can also be seen at 8.00pm on Saturdays on ABC News 24. It is also available on ABC iview.
Sri Lanka Backgrounder
Read key reports and responses to the program, " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields". Includes related news, media and background on the Sri Lankan civil war.
05 July 2011
OSRSG-CAAC Daily Press Review
ABC – Sri Lanka - 05 July - “A British television documentary, aired on ABC's Four Corners program last night, showed evidence of rape, torture and murder of civilians during the Sri Lankan government's war against the Tamil tigers. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3261819.htm
Reporter: Channel 4
Broadcast: 04/07/2011
Produced by the Channel 4 in Britain , the program forensically investigates allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed as Sri Lankan Government forces moved in to destroy the Tamil Tiger army. The program provides evidence that while the 'Tigers' used civilians as human shields, the Government forces repeatedly shelled civilians who had been offered sanctuary in "no fire zones". The Government of Sri Lanka denies this, questioning the numbers killed and the authenticity of the visual evidence. You can judge for yourself.
The program contains disturbing descriptions and footage of executions, atrocities and the shelling of civilians. It includes devastating new video evidence of war crimes. Some of this material was shot on video cameras; other scenes are taken from mobile phones used by Sri Lankan soldiers as trophy vision. Put together it creates one of the most confronting stories of war and conflict ever seen on Australian television.
The film goes to air as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faces growing criticism for refusing to launch a full independent investigation into "credible allegations" of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In June 2010, the UN chief asked a panel of experts to advise him on the evidence available relating to the conduct by both sides in the closing months of the war. In a report published in April this year, the panel of experts concluded that there was credible evidence that up to 40,000 people were killed in the final months of the civil war between the Tamil Tigers and Government forces.
The report called for the creation of an international mechanism to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and international human rights laws committed by Sri Lankan Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
This film provides powerful evidence that will lend new urgency to the panel's call for an international inquiry, including harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan Army video footage, and satellite imagery.
While the program clearly shows the brutality of Government forces, the film's producers also detail the horrific atrocities carried out by the Tamil Tigers, who used civilians as human shields. In one case, a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber detonates an explosive charge while standing in the middle of a "safe haven" area for other Tamils.
As one international legal expert explains, the behaviour of the 'Tigers' cannot be ignored:
"Crimes by one side do not begin to give a kind of carte blanche to the other side to break the rules as well."
However, in the end " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields" presents a damning account of the actions of Sri Lankan Government forces, in a war that the Government still insists was conducted with a policy of "Zero Civilian Casualties".
Presented by Kerry O'Brien, " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields" goes to air on Monday 4th July at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 5th July at 11.35pm. It can also be seen at 8.00pm on Saturdays on ABC News 24. It is also available on ABC iview.
Sri Lanka Backgrounder
Read key reports and responses to the program, " Sri Lanka 's Killing Fields". Includes related news, media and background on the Sri Lankan civil war.