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TNA: Tamils Subject to Genocideby Tamil National Alliance, April 12, 2009
FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE The TNA is alarmed by the dramatic rise in Tamil civilian casualties over the last two weeks. Within the last 9 days alone, 707 Tamil civilians have been killed and over 1000 gravely injured. In addition, The Sri Lankan State by imposing an embargo on food, medicine and desperately needed humanitarian assistance has precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe. The Sri Lankan State’s use of food and medicine as weapons of war is a war crime under international law. The situation faced by the Tamil people is unprecedented. Whilst a considerable section of the Tamil people are being exterminated in the so called “safe zones”, or are in imminent danger of being exterminated, the remaining sections are being systematically silenced by being herded into concentration camps, terrorized by mass round ups, abductions and forced disappearances. Even when the Sri Lankan State armed forces’ military operations were purportedly concentrated elsewhere, the Tamil civilian casualty figures within the “safe zone” had reached unprecedented levels. It is the considered view of the TNA, that the recent official announcements of the Sri Lankan State’s intention to launch “maneuvers” to take over the “safe zone”, implies a calculated move to exterminate the 300,000 Tamil civilians living within the said zone. The use by the Sri Lankan State of internationally banned weapons, such as cluster bombs and chemical weapons, has been a characteristic feature of the current phase of the war being waged against the Tamil people. The Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka are clearly being subjected to Genocide. It is in these dire circumstances of an accelerated Genocide by unprecedented levels of Tamil civilian killings and the imminent extermination of those within the “safe zone”, that the TNA appeals to India and the rest of the international community to: -
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