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Dear Secretary-General, Thank you for asking several high-level UN officials to visit or try to visit Sri Lanka in the last few weeks. This has helped to ensure a continued focus on the unacceptable situation of the civilians who remain interned, as well as those who have been 'released' from the main camps. However, the UN's role in protecting civilians and victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka has been, and remains, far from adequate. Please read the November 23, 2009, Statement by the Advisers to the Sri Lanka Campaign on Peace and Justice (http://blog.srilankacampaign.org/2009/11/statement-from-advisers-sri-lanka.html) and that by the Elders (http://www.theelders.org/media/mediareleases/elders-call-sri-lankan-government-protect-rights-civilians-displaced-conflict-do) I believe these statements will give you a better understanding of the situation of between 135,000 and 150,000 civilians who remain interned in miserable conditions without freedom of movement, but also of 12,000 suspected LTTE members who are separately detained and highly vulnerable to torture or other abuse, and approximately 100,000 people who have been dispersed from the camps to a range of highly problematic situations. In addition to the situation outlined in the Advisers' Statement, the human rights of people who challenge the government, continue to be abused, regardless of their ethnicity. Therefore, the eight demands of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice are still, sadly, as relevant and critical now as when the Campaign started ten weeks ago. In particular I am shocked that you, and indeed the whole international community, have allowed the Sri Lankan government to deny the ICRC adequate access to the internees in the main camps, and deny it full access to all the detained LTTE suspects. In addition, you have allowed international human rights monitors, non-governmental organizations, and members of the media to be largely excluded from the camps and from the areas to which people have been 'released.' Given the Sri Lanka government's history of torture and extra-judicial executions, and given credible fears of 'de-Tamilisation' occurring in areas of the North of Sri Lanka, you must know what lack of access for independent agencies and observers means. It is commonly said that your hands are tied by power politics, including obstruction by influential UN member states such as China and acquiescence in (if not active support of) the Sri Lanka government's conduct by such important states as Russia, India, Japan, South Africa and Brazil. I do not accept this excuse. Rather, I believe that if you personally gave strong leadership on this issue, not only would these states' opposition be less tenable but also they would themselves be more likely to put pressure on the Sri Lanka Government. Your leadership would also encourage the USA , France and UK to show more consistent support in practice. The UN's fundamental commitment to human rights has been, and is still being, flagrantly challenged. If you and we allow this challenge to succeed, we are opening the door to future abuses, perhaps on an even larger scale. Of equal concern is that, beyond Sri Lanka itself, the Sri Lanka 'model' will be used as both example and excuse by other governments. I note with disappointment that you still have not appointed a Special Envoy with the personal credibility and commitment to make the international community - India and China included - pull together and so ensure that the Government of Sri Lanka does both what it should do and what it has promised to do. You clearly have many other very important issues to deal with - not least climate change - and this is why I look to you to appoint someone to maintain daily effective international pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka until the situation described in the Statement of the Advisers to the Campaign is fully remedied, notably by ensuring full freedom of movement for every one of the internees and providing safeguards to prevent the torture or other abuse of those suspected or alleged to be LTTE members. Sooner or later the world will wake up and find out what has really been happening in Sri Lanka since the war ended six months ago. We hope that people will remember you as the UN Secretary General who did all he could to protect the rights of a people who have nowhere else to turn. Please act now and please tell me what you are going to do.