The official spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General said his words “spoke for themselves” when Ban Ki Moon compared the massacres in Sri Lanka to the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica.
Spokesperson Farhan Haq was responding to a question from The Island, regarding the Secretary-General’s remarks in Colombo, where he admitted the global body had made “serious mistakes” in its conduct.
A heated discussion took place in parliament on Tuesday as both government and Joint Opposition parliamentarians debated extensively the UN Secretary General's reference to UN failings in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Sri Lanka.
The Secretary-General compared the situation in Sri Lanka to that of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica.
“Something happened during my time as Secretary-General,” he said. “Something more serious and terrible has happened in the past. In 1994 in Rwanda there was a massacre more than 1 million people were massacred. United Nations felt responsible for that. Of course it wasn’t their war and massacres, but United Nations was not able to activate on it.”
“We committed that should never occur – never again. We repeated never again, never again.”
However, massacres happened “just one year after in Srebrenica,” said the Secretary-General. “Again many people were massacred when they were not fully protected by United Nations peacekeeping operations. So we repeated again never again.”
“Now how many times should we repeat, never never again,” he questioned. “We did again in Sri Lanka.”
“We have to do much more, not to repeat that kind of thing in Sri Lanka, Yemen and elsewhere,” concluded Mr Ban.
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