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You can help stop the abuse of quarter of a million people in Sri Lanka Today

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Dear Honourable Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon I am appalled to learn of the conditions facing the 280,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the internment camps in Sri Lanka. This is an intolerable situation and I am writing to ask you to step up your efforts immediately. I know you don't have time for every crisis in the world so I am looking to you to appoint a Special Envoy who has the personal credibility and commitment to make the international community - India and China included - pull together and so ensure the Government of Sri Lanka does what it says it will do and what it should do. I support the 7 demands outlined by the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice and please be aware that I will be holding you - and through you, the Special Envoy you appoint - accountable for ensuring timely action. All 7 demands are important but as the monsoons fast approach, clearly there is a crisis about to happen in the camps and the UN cannot stand by and let this one happen too. If you cannot deliver on these most basic things because UN member governments block such action, I look to you - after due notice to these governments - to name them in public. Given what the UN said it had learnt after Rwanda and Srebrenica, silent collusion and buck passing of blame, with avoidance of responsibility, is simply intolerable. I know you are a man of deep morals and have been personally touched by the situation in Sri Lanka, which you referred to as the worst you have seen. So I am very hopeful you will respond positively to this email. But if by chance you are not willing or able to do so, I ask you to step aside and allow another candidate to emerge who may be able to do what is needed. Sadly there look to be many Sri Lanka type situations emerging, and the people of the world desperately need a UN Secretary General who can meet this worrying challenge. I am writing as one of these people who is taking the time to write to you. Many 1000s would agree but have given up on the UN. Please show them - through what you do - that they are wrong.

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Click here to read the 7 demands of this Campaign

280,000 innocent civilians who have survived a long and very bloody war are now imprisoned in detainment camps in northern Sri Lanka by their Government.
These victims of war are being treated as prisoners and suffer from lack of water, sanitation and medical treatment, widespread disease and separation from loved ones.
The monsoon season is now starting. At least one camp has already been flooded, and if they are not soon allowed to leave the camps thousands more detainees will die from epidemics of cholera and typhoid simply because they are being detained illegally in inhumane conditions.
The Sri Lankan Government has severely restricted ICRC, UN and international NGOs' involvement, prolonging the misery and raising grave concerns about what is happening out of sight.
Wartime policies continue with severe restrictions on the press and systematic use of extra-judicial murder and torture. Pro-government paramilitary groups have free run of the camps.
The Government is now reportedly engaged in an ethnic 're-balancing' - moving Sinhalese and others into the region, while giving political control to Tamil war-lords it has selected.

But this is not just about Sri Lanka Today

Sri Lanka - a conflict which has seen over 100,000 deaths over the last 25 years, with 20,000 civilians reportedly killed in the last days of this latest war - has been dismissed as too complicated and not important enough by foreign governments and the UN. The approval of a large IMF loan to Sri Lanka is evidence of just how little the international community cares.
If this approach is allowed to continue, we are setting an awful precedent and forgetting everything that was said after Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.
The Sri Lankan 'peace through war' model is already being promoted in Burma, Pakistan, and elsewhere.
Having won the war, the Government's support for the illegal use of force and violence is now sowing the seeds of the next stage of this conflict.

If all the people who read this choose to act & send this email, it WILL make a big difference. Many in power have effectively abandoned the people in these camps - please don't abandon them too.