Imagine yourself and your family trapped under a sky that rains shells and bombs day and night for days, weeks, months.

Having to bury relatives, gather their remains, watch them bleed to death.

No functioning state services. Indeed that state is the source of shells and bombs.

Taking refuge under trees, in cold, wet underground bunkers, without food, without communication with the outside world.

Gathering in government designated safety zones only to be targeted for death from the sky. Can you imagine you and your family in such a place?

That place the Vanni and for hundreds of thousands of human beings this is the daily terror and indescribably worse.

What type of government does this to its own citizens even if they are seeking separation? Genocide is not acceptable even for the defense of state sovereignty.

However the slaughter of the Vanni Tamils continues and business continues as usual in the world. The United States, the EU, Japan, China, India all shed a few crocodile tears for the `civilians` and continues to fund and arm the srilankan state. Are all genocides silent? Is that how it becomes possible for them to occur?

Reasonable compassionate people are willing to turn a blind eye to mass terror and torture when it is done in the name of `fighting terrorism`.

Men and women and young people are willing to accept the daily heavy metal death inflicted upon people just like themselves.

This has its corollary at a a more local and micro level as well in how we accept inequality and injustice in our communities and how we treat each other inlcuding our own relations. When we accept that such violence is justifiable it affects our own character and humanity.

We must stand up and make our voice be heard that it cannot be in the name of anything I believe that makes such violence justifiable against my own countrymen or any human being for that matter. This dark chapter too will end but what comes after can be even worse if we allow our humanity to be compromised.