UN says it will learn lessons after Sri Lanka report
(Vatican Radio) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is vowing that U.N. agencies
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 quote 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 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. Listen