Ban denies U.N. covered up death toll in Sri Lanka

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday denied media reports the United Nations has covered up a high civilian death toll during the bloody final phase of Sri Lanka's war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Last week the French newspaper Le Monde first reported that an unofficial and unverified U.N. tally for civilian deaths in the final months of the government's siege against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) exceeded 20,000.

The The Times later reported the same figure, writing in an editorial that "the U.N. has no right to collude in suppressing the appalling evidence" of a government-executed massacre of civilians in northeastern Sri Lanka.

Ban vehemently rejected the notion that the world body had been involved in a cover-up.

"I categorically reject -- repeat, categorically -- any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately underestimated any figures," he said in a speech to the General Assembly. "Let me also say, whatever the total, the casualties in the conflict were unacceptably high."

Last week U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes disputed the 20,000 figure, saying it was based on questionable assumptions and that the final death toll may never be known.

"That figure has no status as far as we're concerned," Holmes told Reuters. "It may be right, it may be wrong, it may be far too high, it may even be too low. But we honestly don't know. We've always said an investigation would be a good idea."

So far the United Nations has no plans for an investigation of the Sri Lanka war. The U.N. Human Rights Council last month decided not to have any probe of possible war crimes committed during the months-long siege against the LTTE zone.