Mannar (AsiaNews) - " Pope Francis's visit will be a great consolation for the people in the north of Sri Lanka who have been affected by war and who feel abandoned", says Msgr. Rayappu Joseph, Bishop of Mannar (Northern Province), home to one of the pontiff's destinations during his apostolic journey to the island scheduled for the first half of January 2015.
After Colombo, the island's capital,
the Pope will travel to the shrine of
Our Lady of Madhu, an important place
of pilgrimage for all of South Asia. Every year more than 600
thousand people come to pray to
the Virgin there.
"He will celebrate a Mass here
- the prelate told AsiaNews
- but he will
also meet the
survivors of the civil war, to
listen to their painful testimonies
and pray with and for them. We expect a large turnout from all
the dioceses of the north and some
of the South". The population,
he adds, "welcomes his visit
as a blessing from God, and we thank the Lord for
that."
The diocese of Mannar - which includes the
districts of Mannar and Vavuniya
- is part of the
"Catholic belt" that
stretches from Negombo (Central
Province) in Jaffna, as the area colonized by the
Portuguese - who brought the first Catholic missionaries - is called. Erected in 1981,
according to the latest available data (2004)
it has a population of over 219 thousand people, 33%
of them Catholic.
From 1983 to 2009, the island was the scene of a bloody civil war between the government and
Tamil Tiger rebels (Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam), an organization fighting to create an
independent state in the north and east of the country, largely Tamil.
"During this war - Msgr. Joseph tells AsiaNews - we suffered losses of all kinds: human lives, houses, properties. Some of our
priests were killed, churches and places we launched
were destroyed. The population has been abandoned to itself, with only our presence to
help them. I have to thank Caritas,
who did a great job to help people in those years. "
Yet, says the bishop, "five years on
from the end of the conflict, there has been no rehabilitation for the survivors. Nobody, neither the government nor anyone else, has taken responsibility for the
89 thousand war widows, the orphans, the maimed, people with psychological trauma. "
"The support and rehabilitation
of a human being is a long journey" - said the bishop. "Children must be educated, clothed and treated if
they are sick. We are there taking care
of all of this with the help of friends and benefactors. But the government is not doing any rehabilitation
work: they are only concerned with building roads and
bridges and I cannot understand
why they are not implementing measures
for the families of the thousands of people who have died in war for the maimed,
for those suffering from psychological
problems. "
Since the end of the war, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has initiated a number of development projects - especially in tourism -
to make Sri Lanka
the "Wonder of Asia". "With all these initiatives, the authorities are trying
to get money from foreign lenders - says Msgr.
Joseph -. I
understand that there must be progress, but the government should make its people its priority. Fostering the development of the people
, and not allow
them to slide backwards"
Next to support social,
added the bishop, "the Church also gives religious support. We try to
support them and help them grow in faith, taking care of
the sacramental aspects. We are
there present, to accompany people
throughout the rebuilding and
rehabilitation of their lives. "
The problem of survivors'
rehabilitation is
closely connected with the
living conditions of the Tamils,
the country's second largest ethnic
group (11.2%) after the Sinhalese
(74.88%). The war became a real ethnic conflict between the two communities, and even today the
Tamils complain of unequal treatment and undergo
continuing
violations by the authorities.
Msgr. Joseph believes "the current problems that have existed for a hundred years, have just one solution, which is finding a communion
in each other's diversity. Tamils and Sinhalese cultures,
languages and traditions. We
could follow the India model and create a federal state,
a single framework in which to implement a decentralization of power. But the government does not want this: It would have to change the Constitution, and
the president. This personality has too
often used his power, especially against minorities"(GM)