Tamils for Obama Urges Congress: Force a Solution on Sri Lanka

by Tamils for Obama, PRWeb, February 7, 2009

Tamils for Obama has sent a letter to all members of Congress asking them to push for the U.S. to compel an end to the genocidal civil war in Sri Lanka.

(PRWEB) February 7, 2009 -- Tamils for Obama has sent a letter to all members of congress urging them to push for the U.S. to force an end to the genocidal civil war in Sri Lanka.

The Tamil group said that it was encouraged to find some influential members of congress -- notably, Senator Patrick Leahy -- making public statements that closely resemble what this group has long maintained. Especially, they said, congress is now noting that Tamil resistance arose out of decades of abuse and "longstanding injustices" by the Sri Lankan government.

The text of the letter follows:

We, Tamils for Obama, are grateful for Senator Leahy's statement ( http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200902/020309d.html ) of February 03, 2009, in which he notes that "The origins of the conflict arise from decades of the Sinhalese majority's systematic discrimination against the Tamil minority …. Successive Sinhalese-dominated governments have failed to effectively address these longstanding injustices…which has in turn fostered violent extremism on the Tamil side."

We could not agree more.

Sri Lankan government armed forces have been shelling hospitals and cluster-bombing civilians. Atrocities of this nature have been going on for a long time --decades -- but at last the world is noticing.

The civil war seems to be drawing to a close. But while the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) has been severely weakened, as Senator Leahy notes, it is unlikely to disappear. The Colombo government's history of abuses and outrages make it permanently incapable of governing the minorities it has abused. As 'The Boston Globe' notes in an editorial "the only true solution must be political: some form of confederal autonomy for the Tamil regions."

We conclude that the Colombo government will never stop its abusive behavior toward its minorities, and so must be forced to do so by the U.S. The precedent is the U.S. and NATO actions to end the genocide in Bosnia.

Only the U.S. has the moral weight to compel an end to the genocide in Sri Lanka, and we hope all members of Congress will urge the U.S. to do so.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tamils for Obama

FYI: Tamils are an ethnic group living mainly in the northeast of Sri Lanka and southern India. They are a minority population in Sri Lanka, and are currently bearing the brunt of a civil war they regard as genocide. One third of the Tamil population has fled the island and formed a substantial diaspora overseas. Tamils for Obama is comprised of Tamils who have settled in the U.S. or who were born in the U.S.

To contact the group, call at (617) 765- 4394 and speak to, or leave a message for, the Communication Director, Tamils for Obama.

Tamils for Obama
www.TamilsForObama.com

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Tamils For Obama
(617) 765- 4394
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