Tamil InsightTamil Voice in the Sun
SRI LANKA: Churches frustrated by government rejection of truce
[Ecumenical News International, Bangalore, India, 19 12 2008] Church leaders in Sri Lanka say they are disappointed by the government rejecting their call for a Christmas truce in the country’s continuing civil war.
“This is really frustrating,” Anglican Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe told Ecumenical News International on December 19 from his diocesan office at Kurunagale in central Sri Lanka after the government turned down the church demand.
“It is sad that the government is not taking our demand seriously,” lamented Illangasinghe, who along with fellow Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo and two Roman Catholic bishops made the truce appeal to the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels.
The rebels known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been waging a quarter-century-long campaign for autonomy of ethnic Tamil minority areas in the northern and eastern parts of the island, alleging discrimination at the hands of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority.
In their appeal, the church leaders had stated, “The spirit of Christmas compels us as Christian leaders of the country to urge the government and the LTTE to declare a truce to include Christmas and the New Year.”
More than 10,000 people have been killed in 2008 alone with government forces launching an all offensive to capture the remaining rebel bastion in northern Vanni where the LTTE controls an area with a quarter million ethnic Tamils, more than 15 percent of whom are Christians.
The church leaders said they wanted the civil war to stop. However, a temporary Christmas truce, they said, “will bring immense relief to the people of the LTTE controlled areas of the Vanni.” It would “also enable the Christians of these areas to worship and engage in their religious practices with less anxiety.”
A spokesperson for the Sri Lanka government on December 18 rejected the call for a Christmas truce, saying that the government would declare a cease-fire only if the LTTE laid down its arms as a precursor to political talks.
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"Next time you want to buy underwear from Marks & Spencer, you want to buy a t-shirt from Next, you want to go on a holiday of a lifetime in a beautiful island off the coast off India - Do you really want to spend your money on a government that chooses to lock 300,000 people up behind barbed-wire.
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A country where we can see on Channel 4 News, young men, naked and bound shot at close range.
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witnessed the bloody conflict
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is this evidence of
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25 August 2009 - Channel 4 News shows footage claimed to show Sri Lankan forces executing Tamils earlier this year. Jonathan Miller reports.
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