Foreign Ministry hits back at Holmes’ comments

The Foreign Ministry yesterday hit out at the United Nations (UN) Colombo office and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes for his comments to Reuters news agency saying Sri Lanka was the most dangerous country for humanitarian aid workers. The Foreign ministry questioned the credibility of the UN office in Colombo, saying that they “have made a practice of hiding from their own headquarters in New York.”

The full text of the statement is as follows:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs notes with regret and disappointment a comment relating to Sri Lanka attributed to Sir John Holmes, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under Secretary General of Humanitarian Affairs, in a Reuters report released on Thursday 9 August 2007, that “there is concern about the safety of humanitarian workers themselves and the record here is one of the worst in the world."

The Holmes comment raises a number of concerns.

1. During his four day visit at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka, Sir Holmes held meetings with H.E the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Rohitha Bogollagama, Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, the Secretaries of the Ministries of Defence as well as of Foreign Affairs, in addition to meetings with a large number of officials involved with security, public administration and humanitarian affairs in Colombo, Jaffna, Batticaloa and Vakarai. At none of these meetings did either the Under Secretary General or any of the members of his delegation even marginally venture to suggest the preposterous statement he is now purported to have made to the Reuters Correspondent in an exclusive interview.

In fact, as quoted in the press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs following over two hours of separate meetings Sir Holmes had initially with Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona and subsequently the Foreign Minister, Foreign Secretary and senior officials on 6 August 2007, it was stated within quotation marks that “in his [Sir Holmes’] discussions at the Foreign Ministry Sir Holmes drew attention to concerns regards the security and safety of humanitarian aid workers”, but acknowledged that “the situation which had gone through a bad period was getting better”. It is noteworthy that this statement was made in the presence of Mr. Neil Buhne, UN Resident Representative/ Humanitarian Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Mr. Valentine Gatzinski Head/UNOCHA in Sri Lanka and accompanying staff from the UN office in New York. Up to now (five days later) there has been no contradiction by the UN side, to the fact that Sir Holmes did in fact make reference that the situation in Sri Lanka was “getting better”.

2. If indeed the Holmes comment purported to have been made to Reuters is accurate, then Sir Holmes has not only been disingenuous, but also fallen short in being forthright with his host interlocutors in communicating the view of the world body, if that was in fact the official view of the UN. To sneak in this comment during a private meeting with a foreign correspondent of a news agency, suggests a motive that is objectively improper.

3. Further, shortly before his departure from Sri Lanka on 9 August 2007 Sir Holmes addressed a press conference where several questions were raised by local and other foreign media on the very issue of the security and safety of humanitarian aid workers in Sri Lanka.It is noted that Sir Holmes chose to make no mention of the views purported to have been made by him to the Reuters correspondent on Wednesdy 8 August 2007, to the rest of the media less than 24 hours later.

4. It would also appear ironic that Reuters chose not to make any reference in the report in question of 9 August, or in their other reports relating to the Holmes visit, to comments made by Holmes communicated in the Foreign Ministry press release that the situation “was getting better”, despite it being available to Reuters on 6 August 2007 itself ( two full days before their exclusive interview with Sir Holmes) and was also to receive wide publicity in the media. Also significantly the Reuters correspondent chose not to draw the attention of Sir Holmes during the exclusive interview on Wednesday, to the obvious contradiction between what Sir Holmes had told the Foreign Ministry on Monday and what he was telling Reuters.

This is indeed poor journalism by an agent of an agency which prides itself to be objective and keen to get to the truth. The sequence of events suggest that rather than trying to be objective, in this instance the Reuters correspondent appears to have been more intent on seeking to find a peg to sensationalise his report, in fact going to the extent of collaborating with the interviewee to publish it only after he had left the country, thus denying any opportunity for others in the media (who were not singled out to be given exclusive interviews) or for that matter in government, to seek to clarify Sir Holmes’ purported allegation.

5. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also notes with concern a comment attributed to unnamed “aid agencies” in the Reuters report of 9 August 2007 to the effect that, “34 humanitarian staff have been killed in Sri Lanka since January 2006, including 17 local staff of Action Contre La Faim shot dead in the restive northeast a year ago in a massacre Nordic truce monitors blamed on security forces”. The Government of Sri Lanka is fully conscious of the dastardly killing of the 17 ACF aid workers and is continuing to do all within its means to speedily identify and bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice.

Up to this point there is nothing to establish security forces complicity in this killing and the Nordic truce monitors have not blamed the security forces. As the Reuters correspondent well knows, rather it is a disgruntled and discredited former head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) who has made such an allegation, which has been disowned by the SLMM itself. Attempts by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and sections of the NGO and media for several months to seek to implicate the security forces in this crime using arguments relating to ballistic evidence misusing a report by Australian Forensic expert Dr. Malcolm Dodd, has also fallen flat on its face last week, following the unqualified withdrawal of the original statement by Dr. Dodd, which gave rise to the original speculation.

Further, as to the figure the Reuters report quotes of “34 humanitarian staff” who have been “killed in Sri Lanka since January 2006”, taking into account the killings of the 17 ACF workers and of the 2 Red Cross workers, which adds upto 19, it is intriguing how the figure of 34 was arrived at.

Given that the UN office in Colombo appears to have made a practice of hiding from their own headquarters in New York, the Sri Lanka government, the media (including Reuters) and the general public, those UN related officials abducted and held by the LTTE, one wonders whether the remaining 15 are possibly such killings of UN workers by the LTTE, which the UN wishes not to talk about. In fact, at the meeting Sir Holmes had with the Foreign Minister, when the Government side expressed concern that the UN had not reported two known cases of UN aid workers held by the LTTE, for the first time it transpired that the real figure was not two but four. In that instance Sir Holmes made it a point to note that the UN headquarters in New York had been equally agitated about the non-reporting by the UN office in Colombo of the atrocities committed to UN staff in Sri Lanka by the LTTE.

In such context, it is unprofessional of Reuters to introduce an arbitrary figure based on unnamed sources, without explaining how it adds up, and also to mischievously imply government complicity in the killings/alleged killings, on the strength of a sole reference to a discredited SLMM official.

6. Overall, it must be noted that the Holmes visit was meticulously organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in consultation with the office of the UN Under Secretary General with a view to developing a constructive and effective relationship between the UN and Sri Lanka. Sir Holmes’ indiscreet and irresponsible comment has made it more difficult to achieve this objective.