On Sri Lanka, UK Says IMF Loan's Not Moving, UN Silent on Abducted Staff and Doctors Amid Its Claims of Myanmar

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 25, diplomatized -- Two weeks after the Sri Lankan government grabbed up two UN staffers, using unmarked vehicles, the UN in New York still had nothing to say. Inner City Press asked on June 25, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said, "I still don't have anything." Video here, from Minute 15:18.
Later on June 25, Inner City Press ran after UK minister Lord Mark Malloch Brown to ask if he was the one working on Sri Lanka for his government. "I have," he said. Inner City Press asked, what about Sri Lanka's application for a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, on which Malloch Brown's boss David Miliband had spoken -- had the thinking changed?
"Thinking for what?" Malloch Brown asked."The IMF loan has not gone through." Inner City Press mentioned that the U.S. has appeared to changed its tune.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's not moving," Malloch Brown said. Inner City Press asked about the two grabbed up UN staff, and that other countries had spoken about it. No one takes a harder line than us, Malloch Brown said.

UN's Ban and UK's Malloch Brown, claims not shown

[Elsewhere at the UN on June 25, Belize's prime minister mocked Malloch Brown as "the noble Lord," saying to take what he said with a "large grain of salt." Video here, from Minute 40:06.]
Footnote: Ban Ki-moon himself appeared on the US television show Charlie Rose on June 24. The host asked about the Economist's critique of Ban's tenure, but cut Sri Lanka out of the quote.
Ban responded by saying that he had saved 500,000 people in Myanmar. Inner City Press was nearly immediately told by a range of viewers that this was an outrageous claim, akin to Al Gore's claim to have invented the Internet and yet somehow worse. One Tamil who contacted the Press asked, if Ban claims to have saved 500,000 Burmese, what must be be said to have done to 20,000 Tamils? While brutal, there is a logic. We may have more on this.
At the June 25 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas on what the 500,000 figure was based. "On the number of people in need when he obtained access for humanitarian workers into Sri Lanka," Ms. Montas said. She then corrected herself: "Myanmar, I mean." Video here, from Minute 15:18. It's true -- Ban Ki-moon has yet to get full humanitarian access to the interned people in Sri Lanka. Watch this site.