Photo courtesy of prothomalo
“They are killing my people.” Mosab Abu Toha
I will not be silent. When Sri Lankan
soldiers murdered seventy thousand
Tamil civilians in the Vanni during
the last months of the last Eelam War,
there were cries of horror, petitions
to the U.S. president, Secretary of State,
Congress, United Nations, British
Parliament, European Union. But
the killers carried on their rampage
and to this day remain untouched,
not prosecuted, not held to account.
Of course, the rebels killed as well,
Tigers kept Tamil people
on a short leash, murdered
opponents, but the issue of scale
is important. Tigers did not kill
seventy thousand Tamil men,
women and kids in tents,
in “No Fire” zones, shot in the back,
after interrogation, disappeared
without trace. Tigers did not leave
thousands of Sinhalese civilian
mothers and sisters and brothers
asking still for the whereabouts
of their sons and brothers,
fathers and sisters The word
is still. Those who lost their
children serving in the Army,
Navy and Air Force at least
know what happened to their
family members, how they died
and when. And they learned
quickly. Now in Gaza,
in the West Bank, in Palestine,
many thousands of Palestinians
ask for the whereabouts
of fathers and mothers, sisters
and brothers. They ask
from exile, and they ask
still in Gaza, those who are
alive still, those who may
or may not read these lines.
before they are blown
to bits, to ash, to dust.