In Sri Lanka, the conflict between the army and Tamil rebels has caught the civilian population between a rock and a hard place. Although the world turns a blind eye, Christian global advocates say churches should insist that attention be paid to victims caught in the violence.

For several years, a civil war in Sri Lanka has placed in opposition a government dominated by the Sinhalese majority population and rebels who claim to defend the rights of the Tamil minority. Defenders of human rights protest that this war is being fought at the expense of the civilian population, with displaced people detained in camps that fail to provide for their basic needs, children abducted for recruitment as soldiers, and other inhabitants of combat zones being used as human shields by the rebels.

Representatives of churches, ecumenical groupings and non-governmental organisations discussed Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict at a session of the 4th annual United Nations Advocacy Week sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and held in New York City this week.

Rohan Edirisinha, a Sri Lankan Anglican layman, presented prospects for a negotiated political settlement. According to Edirisinha, who is a former chairperson of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the National Christian Council in Sri Lanka, the militaristic approach of the current government, focusing on a defeat of Tamil rebel forces on the battlefield, creates doubts regarding the actual chances for a settlement.

The domestic political discourse, Edirisinha said, glorifies the military and centres on the defeat of rebel forces and the reconquest of areas controlled by them. As a constitutional law expert, he argued that "a federal constitution with [safeguards for] devolution of power, and which combines shared rule with self-rule, should be the basis of a just political solution to Sri Lanka's current war".

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik, who moderated the session, affirmed the churches' responsibility in advocating for a negotiated solution. Bondevik's government brokered a ceasefire in Sri Lanka in 2002, which was completely abandoned last January after repeated violations by both parties. Currently, Bondevik is the moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.

Christians make up 9 per cent of Sri Lanka's 19 million population. They are the only religious community which bridges the ethnic divide between the Sinhalese-speaking, predominantly Buddhist majority and the predominantly Hindu Tamils.