Church groups demand U.N. intervention to help Sri Lankan Tamils

Church groups in India have demanded the United Nations intervene to help end Colombo’s “hostilities” against Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

Catholics and Protestants, along with other religious leaders, protest in New Delhi against the ‘genocide’ of Tamils in Sri Lanka

In New Delhi, hundreds of Catholics and Protestants, mostly priests, pastors and nuns, held a joint demonstration on April 29 against what they called “genocide” in the neighboring island nation.

A day earlier, Catholic theologians who met for their annual meeting in Pune, western India, sought U.N. mediation to find “an amicable and mutually acceptable political solution” to the conflict.

At the New Delhi protest, organized by the Ecumenical Clergy Forum for Human Rights, priests and nuns in traditional Church dress sang and carried placards in support of Tamil civilians caught in the fighting in Sri Lanka.

The ecumenical forum was established in December 2008, initiated by the Protestant Tamil Nadu Theological College to defend human rights. More than 15 Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church, and their organizations joined the recent protest.

A memorandum from the protesters welcomed the Sri Lankan government’s announcement on April 27 that it would end the use of heavy weapons against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and concentrate on rescuing trapped civilians. “But this step, which is too little too late, does not guarantee and fulfill the just demands of the Tamils on the island,” it added.

The memorandum, handed to officials at the U.N. offices in New Delhi also demanded international intervention to end war crimes and restore human dignity in Sri Lanka.

Protesters also submitted the memorandum to Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Prime Minster Manmohan Singh, as well as the Sri Lankan High Commissioner.

“The bodies, psyche and spirit of the innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka have been shattered. In the name of war on terror, the Sri Lankan government and military is engaged in genocide,” said the memorandum.

It demands the U.N. and the international community “initiate a process” to bring peace through a political settlement to protect the rights and self-determination of the Tamil people.

The memorandum also urged the Indian government to “stop all logistical and military support” to the Sri Lankan government and for international agencies to manage relief camps without interference from Colombo.

Another demand was for an independent international fact-finding team to visit the war zone to assess damage and monitor humanitarian assistance.

The memorandum also calls on the Sri Lankan government to announce a unilateral ceasefire to allow Tamil civilians to leave the war zone and hasten rehabilitation, food and shelter to displaced people.

About 200,000 Tamils are displaced in the war zone with “thousands barricaded in concentration camp-like conditions” in government-run camps, Vijayakumar James of the Church of South India told demonstrators.

“Free media does not exist in Sri Lanka,” said James, a member of a team that visited the war zone in February. “No cameras or mobile phones are permitted in Jaffna. There is a systematic blocking of news coming out of the area,” he added.

The Protestant lay leader also alleged the Sri Lankan army is “systematically killing Tamils, even children”. He also said about 200 churches had been destroyed in the Jaffna area alone and that war victims have “no food, no medicine.”

Earlier, the Indian Theological Association urged the Sri Lankan government and rebels to lay down their arms and come to the negotiating table. Forty nine theologians, including 11 women, who attended the meeting expressed their “solidarity with the suffering of Tamils”.

Tamil “children, women, the elderly and the wounded are subjected to untold gruesome inhuman suffering, and thousands of them are being killed in the ongoing military offensive,” the association said in a statement. Its annual meeting ended on April 29.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, Jaffna’s Catholic bishop called on Colombo to allow access to the displaced civilians packed in government camps on the Jaffna Peninsula.

”Allow UNHCR and other aid agencies to work in internally displaced people camps as the government is struggling to cope with the situation alone,” Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam said.

He issued the appeal following a four-day visit to refugee camps and hospitals in Vavuniya, Mannar and Trincomalee districts in Jaffna.