Christian religious leaders offer proposals for reconciliation in Sri Lanka
Colombo (AsiaNews) – Sri Lanka’s Catholics, Buddhists and Anglicans have expressed appreciation for the submissions made by a Catholic delegation and the proposal by Colombo’s Anglican bishop to the president’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) at Kadiragama Lakshman Hall in Colombo last Wednesday. The state of emergency in the northern and eastern regions of the country was at the centre of the discussion at the LLRC, something that the Church has tried to address.
The Catholic delegation included Archbishop and future Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Bishop of Trincomalee (Batticaloa) Kingsley Swampillai, Fr George Sigamony, director of Caritas Sri Lanka, Fr Ranjith Madurawela, director of Catholic Schools in the archdiocese, Attorney Shamil Perera, and Bishop Anthony Perera, chairman of the Catholic National Commission for Justice and Peace and Human Development.
AsiaNews spoke to Fr George Sigamony, who relayed the proposals Card Ranjith presented to the commission.
“The archbishop stressed how a culture of peace, which is another aspect of building harmony, needs a trilingual education in the schools as a first step towards building tolerance among individuals and communities,” he said. “As long as children are not educated in the three languages, we will not easily find an effective solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem.”
For the archbishop, “a language policy, especially in the schools” is important “to settle matters in the North and the East. As an integral part of this nation, the Catholic Church must play a major role in building peace and promoting the country’s welfare. Sri Lanka’s problems must be closely analysed in order to come up with solutions governed by our faith’s vision and direction”.
In his address, Mgr Swamipillai focused on the need to promote a culture of human rights, highlighting a number of specific issues, namely the fate of the missing and those still held in prisons and camps, as well as the right of families to visit relatives held behind bars or barbed wire. Equally important, is the need for the authorities to issue death certificates for those killed during the war and pay compensation for those who lost property and family members.
Fr Sigamony also spoke about refugee repatriation and ways to provide refugees with adequate housing and assistance.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa set up the LLRC last May to investigate the failure of the Norwegian-mediated peace process to find a solution after 2002.
For 25 years, the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought a war in which 700,000 people were killed, both Sinhalese and Tamil.
.png)
07/02/2019 17:28
