Dear Honorable Mr. Dieng,

Release of 2007 Report and all documents regarding Tamils in the Island of  Sri Lanka

We respectfully and urgently request that all reports and research pertaining to the Genocide and other serious crimes committed against the Tamil people on the island of Sri Lanka to be released.

According to the U.N Internal Review Report published on November 2012, your office raised concern with the Sri Lankan government and the U.N. Secretary General over the situation. Your attempt to issue a public statement was not supported by U.N. Headquarters. Also, the report clearly acknowledges the futility of “quiet diplomacy” in connection with the physical security of the Tamil people. After the sacrifice of over 100,000 lives, we believe public diplomacy is now in order.

The UN Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka estimates more than 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed during the last days of the war.  The UN Internal Review Panel on Sri Lanka estimated that in fact 70,000 civilians were killed in the last days of that war. The Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, in his submission to the Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), stated that 146,679 people remain unaccounted for during the final stage of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

The Tamils’ economic, social, political and religious bases continue to be under attack by the Sri Lankan State and its agents comprising almost exclusively of Sinhalese. Nearly four years after the end of the war, the destruction of the Tamil Nation continues through systematic demographic shifts in traditionally Tamil areas, political marginalization, Sinhalization, and military occupation.

As Tamils, we have withstood the long years of assault on the survival of our people. We now stand attesting to the resilience of a people under immense threat. Yet, this threat is not widely understood so that the context of attacks on the Tamil people have been read by the international community solely within the Sri Lankan Government’s narrative of the ‘war against terror,’ just as the Syrian government continues to claim its opponents as “terrorists”. 

We urge you to release all information at your disposal which pertains to the security of the Tamils of Sri Lanka as a Nation.

It is our belief that your mandate covers “Collecting information, in particular from within the UN system, on massive and serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law of ethnic and racial origin that, if not prevented or halted, might lead to genocide, and acting as a mechanism of early warning to the Security Council, through the Secretary-General, by bringing these situations to its attention.”

Thank you for your unabiding concern for the wellbeing of all peoples.

 Yours sincerely