UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday denied media reports the world body covered up a high civilian death toll during the bloody final phase of Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil Tiger rebels.
Last week the French newspaper Le Monde first reported that an unofficial and unverified UN tally for civilian deaths in the final months of the government’s siege against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) exceeded 20,000.
The Times later reported the same figure, writing in an editorial that “the UN has no right to collude in suppressing the appalling evidence” of a government-executed massacre of civilians in northeastern Sri Lanka.
Ban vehemently rejected the notion that the world body had been involved in a cover-up.
“I categorically reject — repeat, categorically — any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately underestimated any figures,” he said in a speech to the General Assembly.
“Let me also say, whatever the total, the casualties in the conflict were unacceptably high,” he said.
Last week UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes disputed the 20,000 figure, saying it was based on questionable assumptions and that the final death toll may never be known.
“That figure has no status as far as we’re concerned,” Holmes said. “It may be right, it may be wrong, it may be far too high, it may even be too low. But we honestly don’t know. We’ve always said an investigation would be a good idea.”
The UN Human Rights Council last month decided not to have any probe of possible war crimes committed during the months-long siege against the LTTE zone.
In the final siege of the war, Holmes repeatedly criticized the government for shelling areas where civilians were trapped, warning that it could lead to a “bloodbath.” He also criticized the LTTE for treating innocent civilians as hostages. Both sides rejected the UN charges.
Holmes said the 20,000 figure during the final phase was based on an unconfirmed UN estimate of around 7,000 civilian deaths through the end of April and added roughly 1,000 more per day after that.
Holmes said the initial figure of 7,000 deaths had been deemed far too questionable for official publication because the world body was not in a position to calculate a reliable death count. It was not really present in the battle zone, he said.
Ban expanded on this point in his speech to the General Assembly, insisting that the “final total is not yet known.”
“Most of these figures do not emanate from the UN and most are not consistent with the information at our disposal,” he said.
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