Sri Lanka: Floods: A million people displaced, Tamil relations

Sri Lanka floods provide chance for government, Tamil Tiger reconciliation

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has undertaken few reconciliation measures since defeating Tamil separatists. Current Sri Lanka floods provide a chance for him improve relations.

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An army soldier walks through flood waters as other men follow him after heavy rains in


Batticaloa, 


Sri Lanka,

on Jan. 13. So far, 27 people have died and nearly 20,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.

Reuters

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India: Sri Lanka: Principals who direct some 50 Christian colleges & universities gather today

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA— A conference of Principals of colleges and universities in India that was previously scheduled for May in Bangkok, Thailand, is now rescheduled for September 9-12, 2010, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The reason for the re-location is due to the April advisory of India's govt, recommending  that citizens avoid nonessential travel to Bangkok where explosions had killed one person and injured dozens in the city’s main financial district; the travel advisory continued into the month of May.  So, thereupon, the three sponsors of the planned Principals' Conference -- IAPCHE, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), and the Student Christian Movement of India (SCMI) -- hastily tried to re-organize the event in another location, but were not able to effect the change. The organizers then agreed to change the date and venue.

Invitation

Therefore, we re-issue our warm invitation to institutions world-wide to join Indian principals (presidents) at the 4-day event with the theme Strengthening through Networking. India is the country with the most IAPCHE institutional members. These institutions have a long history of carrying out their mission in a pluralistic national context, where Hinduism and Islam are the majority religions, and where Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism have significant communities as well. 

IAPCHE had sponsored an earlier all-India assemblage when more than 50 Indian institutions gathered at a conference in Bangalore in 2009 and agreed to meet again in 2010. This conference is an ideal opportunity for IAPCHE institutions world-wide to make connections with the 50+ Indian institutions; the conference gathered in Sri Lanka last n+te, opening the second such Principal's conference -- this time on the island off the Indian subcontinent in Sri Lanka's capital of Colombo.

We believe that this gathering of colleges founded on Christian values will further our institutions’ mission. Possible benefits include establishing contacts for international students’ admissions, and twinning/joint programs among these h+er ed institutions.  A concept paper and conference brochure was made accessible at Iapche's webs+t. (www.iapche.org). 

About Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a presidential parliamentary democracy with a developing economy. In May 2009, the Sri Lankan government declared victory over the Tamil Tigers (an apparently terrorist organization, now defunct, aimed at establishing a separate territory and nation for the island's Tamil population), following more than 26 years of civil conflict.  Sri Lanka's Tamil population is perhaps best viewed in its inter-linguistic and inter-ethnic context, where it is in the minority:

According to the latest estimates Sri Lanka has a population of about 20 million. The ethnic division of the population is: Sinhalese 74% (this comminity is also anciently descended from a people indigenous to India -- largely Buddhist), Tamil 18% (a peopled ethnically related to the Tamils of southern India, including the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala -- which has a large Christian population), Moor 7% (descended from Arab Muslim immigrants from across the Indian Ocean), Burgher (a community descended, in part, from the Dutch colonists of long ago and inclusive of a synod of 30 Christian Reformed Churches and local missions, as well as of Burgher-descended Catholics), Malay, and Vedda 1%. Major languages in Sri Lanka are: Sinhala 74% (official and national), Tamil 18% (national), other 8%. English is commonly used in government and spoken competently by about 10% of people. Population density of Sri Lanka is 792 persons per square miles.

 Despite the history of conflict, Sri Lanka’s beaches, hill country, and archeological sites continue to attract thousands of visitors each year from around the world.  This is remarkable because the Asian Tsunami (December 26, 2004) caused severe damage and loss of life to several coastal areas of eastern, southern, and southwestern Sri Lanka but the affected areas and resorts have recovered. The capital city of Colombo has good tourist facilities.


-- Rewritten by refWr+t from IAPCHE's Contact newsletter (June,2k10)

War: Sri Lanka: The civil war drives thousands out of their homes

The left Anarchist Christian email newsletter Ekklesia reports "Sri Lanka conflict forces thousands to flee their homes" (Apr13,2k7)

Christian Aid partners are working to help displaced people in Sri Lanka after renewed fighting has forced more than 155,000 civilians to flee their homes in recent weeks.

A surge in violence in Batticaloa district in the east of the country has driven people from their towns and villages either into camps for displaced people or to stay with friends and relatives in safer areas.

There are around 292,000 people displaced in Sri Lanka due to the conflict, according to the latest United Nations figure from March 2007.

Christian Aid partner organisations have been working in some of the camps in Batticaloa and in Trincomalee districts. Partners say that many of these camps are no longer entirely safe as some were recently targeted by shelling and others are being visited by armed groups.

There have been cases of people being arrested, or threatened, while families fear their children could be forcibly recruited by paramilitary groups.

In March, a group of people from Trincomalee who had fled to the camps in Batticaloa, were forced by the authorities to return to their homes in Muttur without adequate provision being made for their safety and welfare, according to Christian Aid partner OfERR, which works with refugees and tsunami survivors.

A group of international agencies including Christian Aid together with a local partner is due to assess the situation in Muttur town in April in order to give help to returnees and those families that remained throughout the clashes.

This is not always possible in places like Sampor in Trincomalee district, as militarisation, mining and unexploded ordnance make it difficult for civilians to return home.

South Asia > Sri Lanka

Jaffna in the north of the island has been virtually cut off since August last year when the main road connecting it with the rest of the island was closed after a stand off between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There have been food shortages and a rise in the price of basic essentials. Education is also being affected as schools and universities have to close down.

The fighting is destroying basic infrastructure such as schools, places of worship, roads and houses including those built for and by tsunami survivors, while electricity supplies are unreliable in many locations. In many eastern and northern districts boats are not allowed to go to sea as they are seen as a security risk, making life difficult in coastal areas where fishing is the backbone of the economy.

"There is no alternative to a negotiated agreement," said Laurent Viot, Christian Aid’s representative in Sri Lanka. "In the meantime we need to remind parties to the conflict of their moral and legal responsibilities towards civilians in war zones and offer as much physical and psychological support to the safe and voluntary return of displaced people and more generally to all civilians affected by this conflict".

In 2002 the government and the Tamil Tigers signed a ceasefire to end Sri Lanka’s 20-year civil war which had cost 65,000 lives. Despite the truce still being in place on paper, more than 4,000 people have been killed in the past 15 months, according to European ceasefire monitors.

The article fails to mention that the Tamil Tigers are a terrorist organization and that most of the misery they cause is against their own people, doing so in the name of a special brand of Hindu-Marxism. They want an apartheid separation of Tamils from the other peoples of Sri Lanka, where a self-serving Theravada Buddhist leadership has proved historically to be permanently intractable to Tamil r+ts and needs. I don't fawlt Ekklesia for self-sensoring on this theme because having given a picture from a Christian Aid point of view, it becomes necessary to hold back on crucial facts in order not to render Christian Aid itself a special target of the terrorists.

More info:

Bishop cites Sri Lanka's cricket team as model of unity

UPDATE:

Amnesty International delivers a "politically-correct" slap at Sri Lankan bishop who cited inter-ethnocreligious cooperation among cricket players [Le journal chretien (Apr14,2k7)].