A SENIOR UN diplomat was expelled from Sri Lanka for providing detailed rebuttals of government “wartime propaganda” during the final battles against Tamil Tiger rebels.
In July Peter Mackay, an Australian citizen, was given two weeks to leave the country, despite having a visa that ran until the summer of next year. The diplomat, who was monitoring the conflict, had put together briefings for embassies in Colombo that challenged Sri Lanka’s official civilian death toll and its arrangements for relief operations.
News of his expulsion comes days after the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, denounced Sri Lanka’s decision to expel from Colombo Unicef’s communications officer, James Elder, for “supporting terrorism”. Mr Elder had spoken out on child casualties and malnutrition rates during the fighting, and criticised inadequate provisions for refugees after the conflict.
Mr Mackay, a field operative who worked for Unops – the technical arm of the UN – was less familiar to the media, but played a key role in keeping the outside world informed about the number of civilians killed in the final months of the war – a figure Sri Lanka was keen to play down.
Mr Mackay collected high-resolution satellite images showing that the number of people trapped on beaches where the Tigers made their last stand was far higher than that claimed by the government.
The data showed that not only were more people in danger than the government admitted, but that the food and medicine sent to the “no fire zone” were inadequate.
Mr Mackay was also in touch with local staff and put together briefings, using eyewitness reports of the war, which led the UN to warn of a “bloodbath” in the final weeks of fighting.
The diplomat is seen as a legal timebomb by the Sri Lankan government, as he could take the stand and testify that the army shelled non-combatants – a war crime. He was stranded behind Tamil lines on a mission to rescue 100 local staff and their families and endured repeated bomb attacks for 10 days in January, despite desperate calls to army commanders by his superiors.
Sri Lanka said it has sent nearly 10,000 war-displaced people back to villages in the north and east, four months after the military had defeated the Tamil Tiger separatists. The government is under heavy western pressure to make good on its promise of returning 80 per cent of the 280,000 Tamil people being held in refugee camps to their homes by year-end.
“We have resettled 9,984 people after making sure they have basic facilities,” resettlement minister Rishad Bathiudeen said.
Sri Lanka pledged to resettle 70-80 per cent of the refugees by year-end in its letter of intent to the International Monetary Fund, which gave the country a $2.6 billion (€1.78 billion) loan in July.
Rights groups and pro-LTTE groups have accused the government of forcibly keeping people in the camps for no good reason.
The government has said it must weed out Tiger fighters and clear tens of thousands of landmines before full resettlement.– ( Guardianservice; additional reporting Reuters)