WikiLeaks: Wrap Up ICRC Operations – Gota Sent A Straightforward Message – ICRC To US Mission To UN
November 8, 2013
“Finally, de Maio said that ICRC had received a pretty straightforward message from DefMin Gotabaya Rajapaksa that it was time for ICRC to wrap up its operations in Sri Lanka. ICRC is a conflict organization according to Rajapaksa, and now that the conflict is over Sri Lanka sees ICRC as ‘a stain on the white page of the post-conflict period.’ the US Mission to UN informed Washington.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa
The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The “Confidential” cable discuses what had happened on the ground during and since the conflict. The cable was signed by the US Ambassador to Geneva Clint Williamson on July 15, 2009.
After a meeting with Jacque de Maio, ICRC Head of Operations for South Asia on July 9, 2009, just two months after the war, the Ambassador wrote;”De Maio said others in the GSL have suggested that if ICRC leaves and then comes back as part of a post-conflict approach under a new memorandum of understanding, this might be acceptable. De Maio stated that ICRC is trying to sound accommodating and will pull out of its three eastern sub-offices, where its work was mostly done. ICRC does not want to close up shop completely, however, so it is telling the GSL it will scale back in the hope it will be allowed to stay, as it sees many elements of its core conflict mandate still at play, including war wounded, IDPs, family tracing and detainees. De Maio asked the USG to consider weighing in on ICRC‘s behalf, letting the GSL know that how this plays out will be a factor in the US approach to a post-conflict Sri Lanka. Amb. Williamson promised to raise this with A/S Blake upon his return to Washington.”
Other related stories to this cable;
On Giving Left And Right
Malinda Seneviratne
OMG, BTW, WTF and other three-letter ‘words’ which sound more like 4-letter words are relatively new. Time was when acronym was ‘short’ for proper noun, for example a political party; there was LSSP, CP, UNP, SLFP, FP, TULF, JVP and later TNA, ITAK, SU, JHU and so on. Maybe NGOs (yes, another 3-letter four-letter word) had something to do with it. NGOs, or rather FGOs (Foreign Government Organizations) as veteran journalist and prolific commentator H.L.D. Mahindapala calls them, talk a language that sounds foreign to non-N/FGO people. Nothing beats CSR, though, I sometimes feel.
Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, sounds nice. Wholesome. It probably makes those who work for corporates feel good about themselves. But CSR projects generally cost next to nothing in overall expenditure and typically corporates make a song and dance about SCR that quite out-shouts the pits and pieces of feel-good they dish around. It is called brand positioning.
Consider this.
Immediately after the tsunami struck Sri Lanka in December 2004 and after the immediate sense of horror, there was an outpouring of generosity. People gave and gave and gave, and gave in a thousand different ways. There was no name to giver, to claim of giving. People gave, as individuals and collectives. Schools, clubs, cooperatives and groups of friends did what they could. But there was a different class of givers too, a different colored ‘generosity’. This was the Giving-Bragging club, one could call it.Read More
