Sri Lanka is making a lot of international news lately, but the gravity of the situation is not being conveyed - not even close - primarily due to the Sri Lankan government's propaganda and brutal censorship of the media.

I'm an American who has been working in the country for the past two years. Within the last six weeks, I've watched Sri Lanka's 25-year ethnic conflict become a full-scale genocide against the Tamil population (the primary minority group in the country). Some of the more obvious indications include:

1.     The government is in the process of putting approx. 300,000 Tamil civilians into military-run camps, which are, for all intents and purposes, Holocaust-style concentration camps: forced labor, lack of basic necessities and sanitation, indiscriminate killings and generally dire conditions.

2.     A few weeks ago, the military began systematically raping the women being held in these camps.

3.    In mid-January, the Sri Lankan military created a "safe zone" for Tamil civilians who were still in the war zone so that they would not be "caught in the crossfire". Once the civilians moved into the area, the military started bombing it, even hitting a hospital multiple times.

4.    The government instituted a mandatory registration last month whereby all Sri Lankan citizens are legally required to provide the government with such details as their name, ethnicity and home address.

At this point, it is fairly evident that the only way that the genocide will end is through international intervention. The international community, however, while showing growing concern about the situation and urging an end to the violence, is generally under the impression that Tamil civilians are merely being caught in the crossfire, not deliberately slaughtered. Unless it becomes clear to the rest of the world that the Sri Lankan government is intentionally trying to wipe out the Tamil population, it is unlikely that the international community will take any sort of meaningful action.

This post is an attempt to help get information about the genocide beyond the borders of Sri Lanka, if even in a very small way. Here are some ways you can help out as well:

·       Share this post friends. 

·       Contact Obama about these abuses and ask him to discontinue all aid to the Sri Lankan government, impose economic sanctions and appoint an official to coordinate a US response to the genocide.

·       Contact the State Department and ask them to urge Obama to do all of the above. Secretary Clinton has already demonstrated her interest in the situation by calling for a ceasefire.

·       Contact the the US Mission to the United Nations, and ask them to work with the Security Council to place economic sanctions and an arms embargo on Sri Lanka.

·       Contact your Congressperson and urge her or him to take immediate action to help end the genocide in Sri Lanka.

·       Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers along the same lines. You can find contact info for your local media here.

·       Reach out to community organizations to raise awareness about the situation and ask members to do any or all of the things on this list.

In the interest of not making this post ridiculously long, I've given a rather simple summary of an obviously very complex situation, but I'd be happy to provide additional information upon request.

Thanks for reading.