UN's Ban Has Seen Video Rebuttal Sri Lanka Gov't Gave Him, But Not Killing Fields

When Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona left their meeting with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday night, they paused at the elevator speaking to and about Mr. Ban.
As caught on video by Inner City Press and put online here, Kohona told Rajapaksa, about Ban, "He has already seen the video we sent him."
This would seem to refer to the pro-Rajapaksa government video "Lies Agreed To," itself a purported rebuttal of the Channel 4 documentary "Killing Fields of Sri Lanka." Along with depicting Rajapaksa government war crimes, including a discussion of the White Flag murders involving Palitha Kohona and Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, "Killing Fields" criticizes the UN's and Ban's performance.
But Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky had repeatedly told Inner City Press that Ban has still not watch Killing Fields, despite long ago being given a DVD of the documentary. On September 22, Nesirky's office told Inner City Press, that the"Secretary-General has yet to view the documentary "Killing Fields of Sri Lanka", but has been thoroughly briefed on the film's contents." Now Kohona says Ban "has already seen the video we sent him" -- the rebuttal.
Similarly, as reported by Inner City Press, decisions to not show Killing Fields inside the UN but to screen "Lies Agreed To" along with Kohona and his Deputy Shavendra Silva, were taken unilaterally by Giampaolo Pioli who accepting money from Kohona, for property. The UN briefing room, and apparently Ban Ki-moon himself, saw the government's rebuttal without seeing the underlying documentary film about Rajapaksa -- and perhaps Nambiar's -- war crimes.

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• Sri Lanka
• UN
• Ban Ki-moon
• Rajapaksa
• Kohona
• Killing Fields