17 02 2009 மாதிரி கடிதங்கள்

His Excellency Ban Ki-moon

Secretary-General

The United Nations

1 United Nations Plaza

New York, New York 10017-3515

February 17, 2009.

Former Sri Lankan Attorney General calls for immediate UN intervention

An Australian Human Rights Organisation, Australians for Human Rights of the Voiceless headed by Hon Shiva Pasupati, Former Attorney General of Sri Lanka has strongly criticised Sri Lankan Government’s Genocidal war on minority Tamils and said, “We are alarmed that the human rights atrocities in Sri Lanka have reached genocidal proportions.

It further called on United Nations Secretary General to intervene immediately and said As things are, it is extremely important the UN SG seriously consider the dispatch of a monitoring mission that would undoubtedly serve to mitigate the severity of the atrocities that the internally displace people have to endure.

We are alarmed that the human rights atrocities in Sri Lanka have reached genocidal proportions, to say the least. The most affected currently are those 250,000 displaced people entrapped within the combat area between the Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For the past two months or so, in a single day at least 80 persons have been killed by aerial bombardments and shelling. And hundreds are maimed. The most pathetic of the victims are the infants and the children, the news of whose wanton killing are most chilling. The most vulnerable are those patients in the hospitals and makeshift hospitals, which are being indiscriminately bombed. Recently the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is now under orders by the government to leave combat areas, had to transport more than 200 injured to hospitals in the non- combat areas by boat under very difficult circumstances.

Given the dismal human rights record of the Sri Lankan State in the recent years, with worldwide condemnation from United Nations agencies and reputed international human rights organizations and in the absence of independent organizations and a free media reporting, we are inclined to believe that most atrocities committed on the helpless stranded civilians, without a roof over their heads and starving, are perpetrated by the armed forces.

It would be recalled that recently, due to international pressure, Sri Lanka appointed a body called the "International Independent Group of Eminent Persons" to oversee the work of a Presidential Commission, which was inquiring into certain dastardly cases of murder of international aid workers, students and others, allegedly by members of the armed forces. A former Chief Justice of India was the Chairman of the Group, which included among others, Professor Shearer, who was Australia's nominee. All the members resigned after a year, alleging a lack of commitment by the government to pursue the offenders.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said, on 29 January 2009, that she was "seriously alarmed by the situation". The Sri Lankan government has been under intense local and international pressure to halt attacks against journalists and media organizations The UN and foreign governments, including the USA and the EU have condemned the attacks. According to Amnesty International, 14 media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka since 2006 and others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared while in the custody of security forces.

In 2008, Sri Lanka ranked 20th in the Failed States Index by the Washington based think- tank, Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy Magazine. Recently, on the 60th anniversary of the United Nation Prevention of Genocide Convention, the New York based "Genocide Prevention Project" placed Sri Lanka on the list of "Red Alert" countries, along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Congo, Myanmar, Pakistan and Somalia. It is unfortunate that only Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the UNSG, cannot see the urgency of this matter to be brought up at the UN Security Council meeting.

It is also unfortunate that Sri Lanka has rejected the British PM's nomination of a former Defense Secretary, Des Browne, as his special envoy to Sri Lanka, calling it "a disrespectful intrusion".

We unequivocally support the request of the Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, calling upon "the Federal Government and the UN to do whatever is in their power to bring pressure to bear on the Sri Lankan Government to allow Independent observers and journalists access to the conflict zone". He has further said, "If the reports are false, then the Sri Lankan Government has nothing to fear".

As things are, it is extremely important the UN SG seriously consider the dispatch of a monitoring mission that would undoubtedly serve to mitigate the severity of the atrocities that the internally displace people have to endure.

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His Excellency Ban Ki-moon

Secretary-General

The United Nations

1 United Nations Plaza

New York, New York 10017-3515

February 17, 2009.

The International agencies and world governments, concerned about the plight of civilians should therefore prevail upon the Sri Lankan government to stop the war. Unfortunately, the International Community is adopting an ironical line of allowing the war and at the same time worrying about the plight of the civilians.

The Colombo government verbally says that their war is against the LTTE, but in truth it is fighting a war for complete Tamil subjugation.

This policy of double standards of justifying Colombo's war and worrying about civilian casualties is fundamentally flawed.

The UN should work hard to change this faulty equation, which will only help to ensure human life, dignity and assertion of human rights, not only in the conflict zone, but in the entire island.

The immediate concerns of the civilians in Vanni are freedom from the fear of attack, medicine, food, potable water and freedom to get back to their villages and homes without fear.

The UN is very well aware that Colombo is not heeding to the demand of even a temporary truce. It is not allowing the supply of food and medicine. It is herding people to a land where potable water is a scarcity and it is planning to keep the people in concentration camps rather than creating a situation for their return to their villages.

Therefore, the UN is accusing the wrong side in addressing the concerns of the people.

The International Community should act immediately with responsibility and with judicious decisions in arresting the ongoing catastrophe to the civilians of Vanni.

All concerned are very well aware that the civilians stay in our territory at their own will.

This is what pinches the Colombo government which is bent on taking every effort to terrorise, inflict death and injury, and deny essentials of life in order to capture them.

In the process, the Colombo government doesn't hesitate in deliberately and extensively using even prohibited weapons such as firebombs and cluster bombs on civilian targets.

The international agencies and media adopt a faulty diplomatic policy that whenever they want to come out with any criticism of Colombo government, they first attack the LTTE at length and finally come up with their point against the Colombo government.

This appeasement doesn't work well in handling the ongoing crisis and the international community has to come out in no uncertain terms in their indictments and effective action against the Colombo government.

Please act now to save Tamil civilians from Genocide!

Thank You!