As the quality of life for many Americans is quickly deteriorating with the failing national and world economies, it becomes even more difficult to look beyond our own endeavors to the even greater struggles that other countries face. Many Americans do not see exactly what is happening in other parts of the world, and that is partially because American media sources, and others are not receiving the story as a whole.

In recent news, the American media has finally begun to unfold the events of the past two and a half decades in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, this information is not complete. The Sri Lankan government issued a media blackout, which allows the government to sift through information before it is released to national or international agencies. The world is only privy to the information that the government wants to share. Senior finance major Milan Kanagathayalan believes that “the international community should try to solve this problem as an international issue because Tamil people [of Sri Lanka] are living in almost every county in the world as refugees of the war.”

A brief recap on the recent history of Sri Lanka goes as follows. The civil war that exists between people of varying views of nationalism (Tamils and the Sinhalese) is thought to have begun in 1983, after an event termed “Black July.” According to tamilnation.org, the killing of 13 Sri Lankan army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fueled riots, killing over 3000 Tamils. During this time, tens of thousands of homes were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people left the country and emigrated to western nations. In the late 1980s, the Sri Lankan government, which is generally made up of Sinhalese nationals, began to work closely with India to help keep peace within the island. But during the early 90s, the president of Sri Lanka and the prime minister of India were both assassinated by the LTTE. After replacing the country’s president in 1994, the existing ceasefire ended and Eelam War III began. The BBC World News reports that by the year 2000, nearly 65,000 people had been killed. The years that followed these hostilities were filled with ceasefire, assassinations, new presidencies, and more casualties. The nation is currently in a state of chaos. The conflict has escalated to a point where the term “genocide” is being used to describe the violence directed towards the Tamils. Although the hostilities began far before 1983, the atrocities that are now being committed by the government and the LTTE have put the citizens of the country on a paralyzing level of danger.

The violence between the Tamils and the Singhalese is being compared to the genocides in Sudan, Congo, and Bosnia. The Genocide Prevention Project has put Sri Lanka on “red alert” along with the aforementioned countries. J.T. Janani of the Tamil Guardian has pointed out stark comparisons between present-day Sri Lanka to that of Rwanda in the mid-90s. Similarities include the genocide beginning after the opposing sides re-armed themselves during peace talks, with community members forming their own anti-terrorism militias and the international community’s lack of engagement to an obviously deteriorating situation. Still, some out there are not calling the situation genocide because they believe that the struggle is between people with opposing ideals of nationalism and that the civil war will someday cease to continue. Others are exclaiming that people within the governmental system are working to make the country Tamil-free. Senior computer science and engineering major, Rajitha Jayasinghe, believes that in the midst of all of the violence, “our greatest casualty is misunderstanding.”

Many are crying out for the protection of children within the country who have been taken in by the LTTE to be used as child soldiers. The LTTE has slowly but surely been depleting in number and has also been losing control of more territory. To make up for this reduction, they have been forcibly recruiting children and teenagers to strengthen their forces. The government, along with protective children’s agencies like UNICEF have been pushing for the LTTE to release their adolescent militia for years, but the length to which the LTTE has responded has been little to none. According to the Geneva Convention, the participation in armed warfare of anyone below the age of 15 (even if it is voluntary) is seen as an offense. The UN has released that nearly 300,000 child soldiers are in service throughout the world, with about 2000 of them in Sri Lanka.

Bruce Fein of The Boston Globe is working on behalf of Tamils Against Genocide to bring to light hidden efforts that have taken the lives of thousands. What has surfaced is the work of two men who commanded the Sinhalese security forces. They were found to have played a large role in 3,800 extrajudicial killings and disappearances. The men have also worked to create severe living conditions for Tamil citizens by starving them, not providing medical aid, and helping to displace nearly 1.3 million people into refugee camps, which were then bombed. One of these men, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, appeared on BBC News Radio early this February to give his perspective on what was actually happening. He stated that anything outside of government declared “safety zones” should not exist. What he failed to mention is that people are living outside of these zones and also that there are orphanages, healthcare facilities, and temples in these areas that continue to provide services to their citizens. Disregarding this, government presses on to clear out these areas, and they have successfully done so by bombing and shelling anything they see fit, regardless of occupancy.

The Tamil citizens that have given into moving into these safe zones have also found themselves in hot water. Nearly 350,000 civilians have been moved into these “safe zones,” which Fein calls “Tamil killing fields.” In these areas, thousands have been killed and injured due to bombing. Later in his interview when asked about the killing of a prominent newspaper editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga, Rajapaksa doesn’t see the death as a big deal. He states, “Who is Lasantha? He is just another person. There are so many murders in the whole world.” Many believe that Wickramatunga was murdered to silence his criticism of the government. Jayasinghe helps us to understand this statement, explaining that it as though, “the price tag on human life in the east is very different from the west, and this is sad.” Rajapaksa declared that anyone who isn’t involved in fighting against the LTTE is a terrorist. This mentality seems to be growing recently, as there has been an exponential increase in human rights violations in Sri Lanka, and the world is starting to take notice. So much so that this past December, Amnesty International released that the United States, along with other nations, had suspended military aid to Sri Lanka due to human rights concerns.

Regardless of race or religion, it is conventional wisdom that food and medicine are things that we all need to survive. But what happens when they’re used as weapons of war? Over a quarter of a million people are currently cornered into Northeastern Sri Lanka because of the conflict, and during their time there, the food and medical supplies have dwindled to a dangerous low. The Sri Lankan Health Ministry has said that only five percent of the necessary drugs and dressings were received in the last quarter of 2008 and all of 2009. A letter released out of an LTTE stronghold says, “Most of the hospital deaths could have been prevented if basic infrastructure facilities and essential medicines were made available.” The UN states that they have been unable to send humanitarian aid due to denied access since September of 2008. People from all over the world have begun to gather up supplies to send over, but are fearing that their care packages will never make it to their loved ones.

Kiruba Pillai, a member of the Tamil community in Buffalo, has been working with others like herself to bring to light what’s going on in the country. She says that “we have been meeting every week to figure out what we can do for our people. We are working with government officials to push for progress.” The Tamil Health Organization (THO), Tamil Aid, White Pigeon, Technical Association of Tamils (TAOT), The Tamil Support Foundation (TTSF), TSSA, Hindu Temples, and Churches have gathered to send over 500 tons of food and medicine along with medical teams to Sri Lanka by the end of march. The Tamil National (TN) has reported that an International Red Cross vessel carrying 2000 tons of aid to the country is being prepared to leave from Great Britain. The TN has announced that they received word from a senior naval officer who has warned against this vessel’s entry onto Sri Lankan waters. The officer stated that it is their right to attack anything that approaches the territory.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is an overseeing body that helps to protect and monitor the human rights within a country. The international coordinating committee of NHRC has recently downgraded the accreditation of the NHRC in Sri Lanka for multiple reasons, the first being the way in which the country’s board was put together. The committee requires that the board be independently appointed and fully resourced. Amnesty International states that with the increase in abuses to human rights, the exemptions of punishment to those who commit these crimes have also increased. The Sri Lankan government was asked to investigate unlawful killing of citizens, volunteers, and others, which they have yet to do and the criticisms from the outside world are building up due to their inaction. Asia director at Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams says that “The Sri Lankan government has apparently given its security forces a green light to use ‘dirty war’ tactics…abuses by the LTTE are no excuse for the government’s campaign of killings, ‘disappearances,’ and forced returns of the displaced.” Along with other members of the Buffalo community, Jeyan Pillai has been approaching our available media, hoping that they will help to “expose the current conditions of people’s lives in Sri Lanka.”

Scores of people have been coming together to protest the violence and genocide in the country. Kanagathayalan is noticing that life will never be the same for those who left Sri Lanka seeking refuge elsewhere. He says, “Just like me, many Tamil families are immigrating everyday to other countries, and even if we are alive, our culture, traditions, and ways of life are being lost with every generation…” Although, some people are hopeful of what’s to come, not many believe that the war will end in the near future. What they do know however is that it will take a lot of work to bring the country to it’s feet. Jayasinghe believes that “the next two to five years are very crucial” for the future of the country. He feels that Sri Lanka needs to be repaired not only politically, but emotionally. He is adamant that “the next generation of Sri Lankans will advance the country greatly. The bitterness of the past will dissolve.”

The deaths and ill treatment of thousands should be enough of a wake-up call for the international community to step up and have their opinions heard. It is everyone’s moral obligation to do what we must to protect the lives of innocent civilians. We have the opportunity here to halt the efforts that would undoubtedly lead to full blown genocide. The world cried never again after the atrocities committed during WWII, but as a human race we have failed to live up to our word.