June 25, 2009

Re: Special Envoy to Sri Lankan

Mr. President:

We at Tamils for Obama believe that solving the problems of ethnic division and hatred, and the violence that results requires the appointment of a U.S. special envoy to Sri Lanka.

This problem began when the British made Sri Lanka independent in 1948. The government’s campaign of ethnic cleansing led to the beginning of armed resistance in 1983 and the civil war that continued until the Sri Lankan government crushed the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. If the government continues its efforts to delete the Tamils from Sri Lankan life, the smoldering conflict will certainly burst into flame again. This is not a problem that has been solved or which has solved itself.  This is a problem that is at least sixty-one years old and which will endure for at least that long into the future if it is not tended to. 

The current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, speaks of “a homegrown solution” in which there will be “no more minorities.”  While Mr. Rajapaksa might seem to speaking of a country without rancor or ethnic divisions, his history and the history of Sri Lanka indicate that he means crushing or evicting such minorities as exist.  He will apparently continue until there is only his own Singhalese Buddhist ethnicity left on the island. The Tamils will not consent to being wiped away.

“Ethnic cleansing” usually involves persecuting a minority until they feel unsafe in the country, and leave. Before the civil war began in Sri Lanka, this campaign included nation-wide race riots directed at Tamils, stripping Tamils of their political rights and protections, uprooting Tamils from areas in which they have lived for millennia, and encouraging Singhalese to move into the vacated homes, and illegitimating Tamil language and culture. During the civil war the campaign included making war on the Tamil civilian population using both military and paramilitary forces. In 2009 alone, between 20,000 and 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan government.

The 300,000 Tamils currently trapped in the government’s “welfare camps” are alleged to be victims of widespread kidnapping, rape, disappearances, and other phenomena consistent with the government’s ethnic cleansing policy.

In 1948, Tamils were over 30 percent of the population of Ceylon, as the country was then called. They are now under 18 percent of the population.  Colombo’s ethnic cleansing campaign appears to be working.

That international media and humanitarian organizations are kept out of the camps and other areas into which Tamil IDPs have been driven is also consistent with the government’s policy, to which they want no witnesses.

“Ethnic cleansing” is a euphemism for the state terrorism and genocide that are practiced by states like Sri Lanka. It is bad enough where it occurs; but we must also consider  the destabilizing effects it has on neighboring countries and the coarsening  effects on the countries like ours which  allow it to happen. The United States must recognize that the genocide of the Tamils is of interest to all of us. We urge that you appoint a special envoy to deal with this problem. It will not go away by itself.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Chairman, Tamils for Obama