Send a letter to MP or MEP

Dear Gareth

I wish express my grave concern about the Sri Lankan government’s continued denial of access by international aid agencies and journalists to the conflict zone in the north. Following the statement by the LTTE in the weekend that they have laid down their weapons following their military defeat, the Sri Lankan government released a press statement yesterday saying that all the civilians were now out of the conflict zone.

The ICRC needs to be granted full access to the region immediately to treat and evacuate any survivors. This was previously prevented by the government on security grounds, but the authorities have no excuses now if, as they say, the military operation is over.

What is deeply disturbing about Sri Lanka's claim that all civilians have now been 'evacuated' from the conflict area is that, in recent days, the UN had been estimating that 50,000 to 80,000 civilians were still trapped.

What has happened to all of them? The UN's description of a "blood bath" last weekend could in fact be an understatement.

The US may have fresh satellite images that could help answer this question. Given that the government is still preventing access by the media and international agencies, I fear that a major cover-up operation is now taking place to dispose to evidence of killings on massive scale, war worse than had been previously feared.

Of the civilians who are already in the government's custody, the cases of four individuals in particular need to be highlighted. They were government-employed health workers in the conflict zone trying heroically to help treat the wounded to the very end.

Unfortunately, the government also suspects them of providing information from inside the zone to international journalists and others over the past months - including evidence of government shelling of areas with large concentrations of non-combatants, which may constitute a war crime.

Therefore, please ask the British government to raise with Sri Lanka the safety of these four brave medical workers and demand their release from custody immediately.

In the past, claims by prominent Tamils of an unfolding genocide have been largely dismissed as exaggerated.

Even though Sri Lanka will try to suppress the evidence, the truth will eventually come out, and when it does there will be “consequences” (to use British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s words).

For the international community, the implication of a democratic country like Sri Lanka being able to perpetrate mass war crimes (albeit under the guise of counter-terrorism) with impunity is that international law and the authority of the UN will be seriously undermined.

Your Sincerely