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.