Speak up to save Sri Lanka's people.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

It seems a repeat of the most recent history: a civilian population trapped and terrified as a modern army equipped with hi-tech weaponry pummels a group of resistance fighters. Sri Lanka's government appears to believe that force can be used without restraint and the world will do nothing.

Once again, civilians are being told they are not the targets, but as the assault is pressed with increasing ferocity this becomes hard to swallow. And once again, the public takes to the streets to make desperate protest; as many as 50,000 British Tamils marched through London on Saturday to demand a ceasefire. I was among them.

I visited Sri Lanka during a ceasefire in 2003, travelling to Jaffna, the Tamil cultural capital in the north and the place where my father was born. It was a time of hope, when the landmines that seeded the soil were being dug out again and young people spoke confidently of their plans for university. It left me enraptured with my family's beautiful homeland.

Although the guns had been lulled on both sides, Jaffna remained a city under occupation. Young soldiers drawn from the Sinhalese majority patrolled the streets, their eyes darting nervously from side to side, surrounded by a quietly hostile people whose language they did not understand. Since the government abolished the ceasefire last year, many more such soldiers have been called on to sacrifice themselves in a war that offers no hope of restoring a meaningful peace.

For, despite all the moves against them, Sri Lanka is not just a tragedy for the Tamil minority. Night is falling on the whole island. Over the years, Sri Lanka's golden beaches and ancient temples have become familiar to thousands of British tourists. Less familiar is the extraordinary transformation overtaking it now.

When the newspaper editor La santha Wickrematunga was murdered last month, his posthumous cri de coeur finally drew the world's attention to Sri Lanka's dark side. Wickrematunga was a member of the Sinhalese majority and connected to the elite. His final editorial, in which he prophesied, "when finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me", laid bare the connection between the ruthless military drive ...