Seeking Obama's' help Tamils hold demonstration at White House

Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 19 (PTI) Hundreds of Tamil protesters
Tuesday held a demonstration in front of the White House
asking US President Barack Obama to help save the lives of
civilians in Sri Lanka's war zone.

Carrying banners and posters, the Tamil protesters who
had come from various parts of the country were raising
slogans that Obama is their only hope now and reminded the US
President of his statement last week on Sri Lanka in which he
had urged the Tamil Tigers to lay down arms and the Lankan
Government to stop shelling heavy weapons.

Despite that LTTE has announced to silence its guns,
the Sri Lankan Government is continuing with its killing of
innocent civilians, alleged Gerard Francis.

Quite a few of the protesters had come from Canada as
well, as the Tamils in this part of the world now believe that
only the Obama Administration can help them save the lives of
ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Later a group of Tamil activists went to the Capitol
Hill to meet the lawmakers and brief them about the situation
on the ground. They said that the Obama Administration should
send its men there as soon as possible before all the evidence
of alleged genocide is destroyed by the Lanka Government.

It is understood that the State Department later held
a briefing for aides of the US lawmakers to give them an
account of the ground realties and what the US is doing in
this regard.

A acquaintance familiar with the briefing said the
State Department official told them that Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton was scheduled to call Sri Lankan President
Mahinda Rajapaksa to express the concerns of the Obama
Administration with regard to the humanitarian crisis in the
northern parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the Tamil protesters decided to continue
with their demonstration for another two days. They had held
demonstration in front of the White House almost all of the
last week. PTI LKJ
DEP
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