Weiss gets wiser: denies 40,000 figure

Sunday 10 July 2011

By H. L. D. Mahindapala

Gordon Weiss, former UN spokesperson in Colombo, who claimed that 40,000 died in the last stages of the Vadukoddai War between January 2009 and May 18, 2009, has revised his figures again.
When he was in Sri Lanka he put the figure at 7,000. After he left his UN job and went to Australia he jacked it up to 40,000 to sensationalize his book, The Cage. At a book launch held in Melbourne last week, he changed his figure again and came down to 10,000 under questioning by Chanaka Bandarage, a lawyer.
Bandarage then asked why the brochure had mentioned 40,000. Weiss had disowned responsibility and passed the buck to the Deakin University which produced the brochure.
This denial by Weiss blows up the fictitious figure of 40,000 mentioned in the report of the Advisory Panel of Experts (APEs) appointed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General. It also blasts the myths of the anti-Sri Lankan NGOs and pundits who went to the town with Weiss’s figure of 40,000.
In addition to the rubbery figures of Weiss, the Tamil lobby claims that the figures quoted by all sources are conservative. Prof. Francis Boyle, the most vociferous propagandist for the Jaffna Tamils, claims 50,000 died. The Tamil spokesperson in Australia, Dr. Victor Kulendran, told an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) programme, in reply to LAKBIMAnEWS questioning these figures that, all the figures quoted are conservative and that the figure is around 120,000. The UN, however, is on record saying that it has distanced itself from Gordon Weiss and also that there was no way of counting the casualties.
Embarrassed by his claims under questioning, Weiss even pleaded at one stage not to spoil his book launch with questions. His book has come under fire from several critical quarters. The book is teeming with inaccuracies.

Posted by Thavam