St. Louis to Sri Lanka: Starving for Peace

This is a picture of my friend Sadena and me from Inauguration Day. In the past year-and-a-half since law school began, we have spent inordinate amounts of time together (not always but usually in the library or various coffee shops where we study). Sadena is someone who makes me happy to be in law school, who always knows how to talk me down when I get overly stressed about life; I have been known to refer to her as “my person,” akin to Christina and Meredith on Grey’s.

So you can imagine how upsetting it is to know that she hasn’t eaten in seven days.

Sadena, along with seven other Americans, began fasting last Monday in order to draw attention to the Sri Lankan government’s genocidal campaign against Tamil civilians. More than 300,000 Tamil civilians are currently trapped in a war zone , and the government has ordered all international aid organizations out of the region. Humanitarian groups are reporting that the entire trapped population is facing a food crisis.

This conflict has received very little attention in the international media, in part because the Sri Lankan government has severely restricted journalists’ access to the area.

But for Sadena, who was born in Sri Lanka and whose family is Tamil, the situation is deeply personal, and simply too urgent to let it continue to be ignored. In the past week since the fast began, they have already seen some successes, with several Members of Congress and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton releasing statements about the crisis. But the situation is getting worse.

You can help support Sadena and her group by pledging a meal and sending an email to your members of Congress here: www.pearlaction.org/fast.

P.S. In addition to these 8 committed activists, the Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist M.I.A. (who is also Sri Lankan Tamil) has also been speaking out about the innocent civilians suffering in Sri Lanka: check out her recent appearances on CNN and Tavis Smiley.