UNESCO statement on air attack ill-advised: Envoy

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO and Ambassador Chitranganee Wagiswara has written to the UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura stating that the country is deeply distressed at the ill-advised statements that have come from him on the aerial attack on the Voice of Tigers (VOT) radio station earlier this month.

She urged him to make a statement to rectify the prevailing misconceptions so that the issue may be laid to rest. “As your pronouncements have created a difficult political situation in Sri Lanka, a country struggling to eradicate the menace of terrorism and to create space for democracy, I urge that you make a statement to rectify the prevailing misconceptions so that we may lay to rest this issue,” the Ambassador said in the letter dated December 21.

On December 3, Mr. Matsuura, issued a a statement condemning the aerial attack on the VOT describing the radio station as a ‘civilian media’ and after strong protest from the Sri Lanka Government to withdraw the statement, UNESCO released a second statement expressing “strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes.” However despite the demand from the Government for an apology, the UNESCO chief failed to do so in his second statement.

The Ambassador in her letter stated that the conflict in Sri Lanka is a complex political issue on which UNESCO does not have either the competence or the mandate to express views. The Ambassador also said that the important factor is that any activity of UNESCO should fall within the “UNESCO domain”.