Tasha Manoranjan, a 2008 graduate of Georgetown, organized the recent People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) fast for peace in Sri Lanka. After completing the fast with a rally at the White House last Friday, Tasha and I talked over email about her work on the fast:

How many people fasted?
8 people were fasting; we fasted continually for 19 days. We successfully achieved our goal of 10,000 meals fasted.

How many meals did you personally give up?
I personally gave up 45 meals — it sounds a lot scarier added up than it did on a day-to-day basis!

Out of the many worthy causes in the world right now, what about the situation in Sri Lanka has made you so compelled to take drastic action?
I was born in America, but I heard from my parents throughout my childhood why they were forced to flee Sri Lanka. I heard about the discrimination by the Sri Lankan government, that meant my parents couldn’t study what they wanted to study, or even study in their own language. I heard about the peaceful protests that they participated in, that the government violently put down. I heard about the attacks of 1983, known as Black July, in which over 3,000 Tamil civilians were massacred in 10 days of violence that the government sponsored and supported. I felt a connection to the people there, whose lives I could be leading, if my family wasn’t lucky enough to escape to America. So I returned to the island in 2004, to volunteer in a girls’ orphanage and teach English. I spent time at the Sencholai Girls’ Home, getting to know the girls there and the tragic lives they led. I befriended one girl, whose parents had been killed in the government’s aerial bombing campaigns in the 1990s. Talking to her and seeing how few opportunities she had to look forward to in her life inculcated a sense of responsibility in me, to all the people I left behind there.

I took a year off from Georgetown in May 2006, and I spent it volunteering in the northern region of Sri Lanka. In August of 2006, while I was working in a nearby community center, the grounds of Sencholai was bombed. The government dropped 16 bombs on this area, delivering waves of fear and destruction. A first aid and leadership camp was going on at the time, and 61 schoolsgirls were killed. I knew I had to do everything I can to bring an end to this suffering.

Why did you decide to show support with a hunger strike?
We felt the suffering in Sri Lanka was so desperate, that we needed to do something similarly desperate. Sacrificing food is something whose impact is felt within a day, which shows the urgency we felt in providing relief to Tamil civilians under attack in Vanni. We have done regular rallies, protests and marches in the past, and while they too are effective tools in raising awareness about neglected crises, we felt we needed to do something more unique and compelling to convey the imminent danger Tamil civilians were in.

What were the ultimate goals of the strike?
The goal of the strike was to ask President Obama to call for an immediate ceasefire, and to allow international aid, journalists and human rights monitors into the region. Only then will Tamil civilians have some respite from the hell they have been experiencing.

Is there any way we at your alma mater can help? Why do you believe this is an important cause for Georgetown students to pay attention to?
Absolutely! Georgetown students have a unique sense of awareness of the world around them, and their role in improving humanity. PEARL relies on people like that, to participate in our campaigns and educate their Congressional offices about Sri Lanka’s continuing crisis. Please visit our website at www.pearlaction.org to see our most recent letter to Members of Congress, and take 2 minutes to send it to them. Sending a letter takes less time than it does to go through the line for lunch at Leo’s, but it makes a world of difference.

Were you active in humanitarian work or social activism during your time at Georgetown?
I was active with our Amnesty group, and participated in other human rights campaigns. We organized a campaign with STAND to stop the genocide in Darfur, and another campaign to stop sexual violence against women in Juarez, Mexico. I also worked with UNICEF to organize a fundraiser for tsunami relief to refugees in Sri Lanka.

How did you become involved with PEARL?
Myself and a group of college students went to Sri Lanka in the summer of 2005, and we all volunteered in different fields: some of us taught English, others worked in hospitals, others worked with IT students. But when we came back to the United States, we found a disturbing similarity throughout our experiences: everyone realized how little awareness and education there is surrounding Sri Lanka’s conflict. We decided to form PEARL in 2005, to educate others about Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and to promote a sustainable resolution that respects the rights of all communities on the island.

What was it like, to fast for so long?
It was definitely difficult the first few days, and I could slowly feel my body rebelling against me, demanding food. But as I read the news and saw how the situation for Tamils in Vanni continued to worsen, I felt the least I could do was stand in solidarity with them and urge the U.S. government to get involved.

Anything else you would like to add?
Often times with massive man-made crises such as what is enfolding in northern Sri Lanka, and what has been unfolding in Darfur and other troubled regions in the world, the international community focuses on what label best applies to the situation. In my opinion and in the opinion of our organization, what is happening in Sri Lanka is genocide. Utilizing the definition of genocide in international law, which defines genocide by the intent of the attacking party, Sri Lanka’s crisis demonstrates the intent of the government to systematically attack Tamil civilians: from herding Tamils into a “safe zone” and then continuously bombing this area, to ordering medical personnel to leave this region, to shelling the one main hospital 10 times, finally destroying it completely and killing 61 patients in the process. This tragic narrative reflects the intent of the Sri Lankan government to kill off a substantial part of the Tamil ethnicity in Sri Lanka — and if the international community maintains its silence, the government will succeed.

Thanks, Tasha! Read more about the Sri Lanka crisis here, and read more about the Pearl project here.