Professor Walter Kalin
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN Secretary-General`s Representative for the Human Rights of Displaced Persons
United Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

08 April 2009

Dear Professor Kalin,

Thank you for your good work to help our People

I read with relief your press release on helping the Displaced Tamils.

I felt that my prayers to Lord Muruga Tamil form of God was being answered through you. Yesterday the son of a displaced person currently detained in Vavuniya, was crying at the Sydney Murugan temple not knowing what to do. He is one who would be relieved by the successful execution of the measures outlined by you.

The reports says `During his visit to Sri Lanka, the Representative consulted with the Special Advisor to the President, the HQ Vanni Security Forces Commander, the Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services, the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, the Attorney General, the Secretary General of the Secretariat for Coordination of the Peace Process, other civilian and military representatives of the Government and heads of UN agencies. Outside Colombo he visited the Omanthai checkpoint and met internally displaced persons (IDPs) at transit sites and camps in and around Vavunyia`

What`s missing from the above is Tamil Leadership. Unless you felt for the Displaced, you would not have been able to bring out the proposals in such detail. But helping the Displaced is a project within the program of self governance for Tamils. Through this project, it is important to derive value to strengthen the ongoing program.

The following is my sharing with fellow Tamils today on this issue `Yesterday, at the Sydney Murugan temple I was thinking about worship. We were actually using the statue of Murugan but what we were actually sharing was the service to each other through Murugan Statue and the Temple. Some were providing the service and others receiving the service. Providers of service include those who made the statue, built the temple and gave us the mantras and the sastras that went with the temple environment. There are times when there are no receivers of our services. Then we become the receivers. That is the God within us.`

Professor Kalin, likewise, the United Nations is the medium through which the two sides to this war see each other or the war has become the medium through which the two sides see each other. Unless the presence of United Nations is felt more strongly than the war the war would remain the medium through which we see each other.

Your proposal to strengthen ` the civilian character of IDP sites by removing military personnel to the periphery and restoring civilian policing and administration` is very welcome. In fact, given that there are in detention, all service must be `arms free`.
I am happy to note that you have asked the government to open the detention centers to families. This has been available to my family in detention. I am however not happy about your ` call upon the Government to immediately release the staff of United Nations agencies and NGOs, and their families`

That is preferential treatment and unless you are ready to offer opportunities for all Tamils in Sri Lanka to work for the United Nations it would disadvantage other Tamils outside your physical circles. It is the parallel of the Government releasing families of all government officers past and present and all Sri Lanka tax payers.

We must practice Equal Opportunity even in war zone. We would if we were Equal Opportunity issue.

Yours sincerely

Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam

CC: All Concerned