Click to Fax campaign - Urge New Zealand to stop playing Cricket with Sri Lanka utill the 275 000 civilians are freed

Dear Policy Makers of New Zealand,

Is playing Cricket in Colombo tolerable, while only just 100 kms away thousands of innocent Tamil civilians are kept behind barbed wire fenced military operated camps against their will? Is cheering "a sixer" in good taste when Children are imprisoned in that same country?

Is it acceptable to trade and play sports with a country where local elections are held with the notice "Journalists are banned from election areas"?

Is it acceptable to trade and play sports with a country where "inquiries" into the killings of Aid workers literally runs for years?

Is it acceptable to trade and play sports with a country where thousands have been massacred and even babies have died gruesome deaths without their births being recorded?

Isn't it not just a Humanitarian crisis but "Humanity in Crisis" when human beings perish without births and deaths records, their life goes "unrecorded" and their stories untold?

Is it acceptable to play cricket with a country which has used cluster bombs, white phosphorous and heavy weapons on a people it claims to be its own, while ordering the UN, NGOs and MEDIA out?

Would you really want to "play" with Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka continues to hold more than 275,000 Tamil civilians in camps that operate like prisons. The civilians are held against their will and most have relatives who are willing to look after them or have homes in "cleared areas". As the Government of Sri Lanka erects permanent structures in these camps, there is increasing fears that these people can be held to up to 3 years in the pretext of de-mining and "national security". Innocent men, women and children are treated like criminals. It is shocking that this illegal detention continues into the fourth month since "war declared over" by Sri Lanka on May 18 2009.

I urge the New Zealand Government and the Board of Cricket to:
- Persuade the Sri Lankan government to immediately release war orphans, children and pregnant mothers from these camps;
- Persuade the Sri Lankan government to allow immediate access to the detention camps by the United Nations, International Aid agencies, Human Rights organisations and Foreign Media;
- Persuade the Sri Lankan government to immediately release all detainees from the camps by making the "screening process" transparent to ICRC and other INGOs and doing it in a manner in accordance with international Human Rights and Humanitarian laws;
- Support internationally mediated negotiations to achieve a just and lasting political solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka and respond to the legitimate claims of the Tamil people for self-determination;
- Request the United Nations to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by any party during the recent conflict;
- Cease trade and sporting links with Sri Lanka until the above are met.
Yours sincerely,