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Asked about living conditions for the 500,000 people living in "uncleared areas" under LTTE control, Bishop Joseph said conditions were inhuman. "You could imagine what would be the life for people living under constant embargo of food and medicine, under shelling, bombing and shooting. This is a very hopeless situation."

His concern was reflected in the IRANU statement which acknowledged the "many horrible consequences of the war on human beings" and "the terrible hardships" the displaced people were undergoing.

Kalupahane Piyaratana, a Buddhist monk with the National Peace Council, told ENI that the criticism of the churches' bid for peace by a small group of people was "not surprising."

He said that Sri Lanka's 30,000 Buddhist monks were divided. While most now supported moves for peace, a powerful lobby controlling the Buddhist hierarchy saw the issue as simply "a terrorist problem that is destroying the country. For them, this is not an ethnic problem, but only terrorism that needs to be crushed."

Kalupahane Piyaratana worked as a government official from 1994 to 1999 trying "to build support for the peace initiatives" of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Now a field director of the National Peace Council, the monk said that in recent years there had been a "perceptible change in the attitude" towards peace on the part of the Sinhalese majority. "Most people are now convinced that war cannot bring peace." He added that the nation was now getting closer to a conclusion to the conflict.

But W. P. Ebenezer Joseph, general secretary of the National Christian Council (NCC) of Sri Lanka, told ENI that the peace process was swinging between "hope and despair. One day it looks full of hope. Next day, it looks all gloomy."

After the pilgrimage, there were reports that the LTTE was angry about an alleged bid by the army to ambush the LTTE team after it left the peace dialogue.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Sri Lanka's Churches Pray for Peace as War Rages Around Jaffna | Country's Protestants to unify in prayer June 16. (June 5, 2000)

In Sri Lanka's No Man's Land, Churches Provide Some Hope for Refugees | Christians mobilize to help nearly a million left homeless by Tamil conflict (Apr. 18, 2000)

Sri Lanka's People Are Not Divided, Just the Politicians, says Archbishop | Churches call for peaceful end to Tamil fighting (Feb. 28, 2000)

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March (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45