UN says it will learn lessons after Sri Lanka report
November 15, 2012: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has vowed on Wednesday
that U.N. agencies would learn from their mistakes, after a damning draft report on
the final months of the civil war in Sri Lanka. The 128-page draft report, which
focuses on the United Nations performance during Sri Lanka’s civil war found that
the United Nations failed “to adequately respond to early warnings, and to the evolving
situation during the final stages of the conflict and its aftermath, to the detriment
of hundreds of thousands of civilians and in contradiction with the principles and
responsibilities of the U.N." United Nations spokesperson Martin Nesirky says,
the report makes it clear, U.N. agencies failed to protect innocent citizens. UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said he would set up a "senior-level team" to consider
recommendations in the light of the report and advise him on future action. Sri
Lanka's government has repeatedly rejected allegations that it committed war crimes
at the end of its quarter-century fight against the separatist Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Elam rebels. It also rejected suggestions in the report that it had intimidated
UN officials. A separate U.N. report released last year said up to 40,000 ethnic
minority Tamil civilians may have been killed in the war’s final months.