Elevated Voices

Dear Friends, Over the past year, I have been visiting Sri Lanka to work with amazing human rights and health organizations to create collaborations to help forward their agendas and, ultimately, affect change. I work for the International Women's Health Coalition and we began working with Sunila Abeysekera and her human rights documentation center, INFORM, to help ensure that women's voices were heard during the tsunami reconstruction process. Our work in Sri Lanka was marked by the cease-fire agreement which has since reversed as Sri Lanka tumults back into conflict. Moved by colleagues and friends, I create this website to help share the news and stories of Sri Lanka. Sometimes the world gets tired of hearing the same old story, but this is one that cannot go unheard or forgotten. Postings on this site will include communiques I receive from treasured colleagues, including Sunila and friends at INFORM, Bhavani Fonseka at the Centre for
Policy Alternatives, friends at the Women and Media Collective and others. I welcome your feedback. In solidarity, Supriya Pillai

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Dear friends,
As many of you know the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka continues to worsen. The daily bulletins from the Northeastern provinces show a grisly picture.

500,000 Tamil civilians are cut off from food and medicine. They are being bombed in IDP camps and have no hospitals to get care.

Since the last humanitarian convoy in November, there has been no humanitarian access to Vaharai, where more than 15,000 people are trapped and on the verge of starvation. These are the people who bore the brunt of the tsunami and have not gotten aid to rebuild their lives. Instead they are being killed, starved, abducted and tortured.

The UN has issued many reports but has not taken sufficient action. The petition linked here is an urgent request for the UN to meet their responsibilities and stop the genocide of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka.

PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO SIGN IT...IT IS URGENT!!! We will send the signed petition to everyone in the UN that can be part of the solution. Silence in the face of injustice is complicit with the crime.

Go to this link http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/srilankaunappeal and sign it today and then forward it to everyone you can!
Respectfully,
Ellyn Shander MD
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