EUROPEAN UNION & THE TAMIL STRUGGLE

'Do not send Tamil refugees back'
Rev.S.J.Emmanuel writes to European Commission

29 June 2000

The President & Members of the European Commission
200 Rue de la Loi
B � 1049 Brussels, Belgium

Dear Sir/Madam

Stop Kfir Bombing in North Sri Lanka -
Do not send Tamil Refugees back

            With a heavy heart I draw your attention to two events about which you and your European partners can come to the help of a country committing genocide as well as a national suicide.

1. In recent months when the ethnic conflict has escalated very much and Tamils in all parts of Sri Lanka, especially in Colombo, are arrested in their hundreds and subject to detention and torture as acknowledged by independent bodies like the Amnesty International, many hundreds of Tamils are forcibly deported back to Colombo. From Germany�s NRW region alone many hundreds are already deported and still about five thousand are to follow according to press information. Most of them are arrested at the Colombo airport, their documents confiscated, after a few days freed and then again arrested and so on. Please take into consideration the security situation of these Tamils and postpone the immediate deportations.

2. All EU countries are convinced that the holocaust must never be allowed to happen in their land. It is also your duty to see that the holocaust does not take place outside Europe and that your country by its foreign policy does not in any way support the genocidal policies of governments like Sri Lanka, which is spending over 30% of its Budget for a senseless war called �War for Peace�.  Eight Israeli Kifir jets bought by Sri Lanka last month are bombing civilian areas in the North of Sri Lanka. According to the Catholic Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar, within a week about 500 civilians have been killed. Because of the strict media blockade imposed by the government of Sri Lanka for the last three years, the western media is not informed. Please take into your kind consideration the ongoing genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and exert maximum pressure by sanctions within your power to stop the indiscriminate aerial bombing of Tamil areas.

            As a group of nations responsible for the human and just demands of a people to survive with human dignity and human rights, I appeal to you to send your own team on a fact finding mission to all parts of the island (including Wanni and Jaffna) and inform yourself before sending back Tamil refugees or continuing your support to the Sri Lankan government.

Yours respectfully,

S.J.Emmanuel