Sri Lanka war not over until there's unity, says Archbishop

|PIC1|The battle is won, but the war is not over, says the Archbishop of Colombo after Sri Lanka's government this week declared an end to the 25-year civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Archbishop Oswald Gomis celebrated the defeat of the once feared insurgent group, but said much needs to be done for the unity and welfare of the people.

He offered his "deepest sympathies to those who laid down their lives in battle and those innocent civilians killed, trapped in war".

The war between the government and Tamil Tigers has left 80,000 to 100,000 people dead and 265,000 Tamil civilians displaced.

The war, says Archbishop Gomis, will end "only on the day that we grow in nationhood realising that we are all one people in one country with equal rights".

"We have to realise the fact that we are a multi­ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural community. As such we are now left with the great task of nation-building forgetting our ethnic, political and religious differences."

He urged people to "leave the sad and bitter memories of the past three decades and look positively and optimistically towards the future in hope".

"All of us have to share the blame for our division and forgive each other. We should have the humility and wisdom to learn from the sad experiences of that past," he noted.

This, he suggested, will "build nationhood that will bring true peace and prosperity" to Sri Lanka.

The head of Sri Lankan Catholic bishops' conference (CBCSL) also agrees that war will be over only after the island overcomes the ethnic divisions.

The celebrations will be more meaningful when "we are able to overcome our prejudices and live together as one people", said CBCSL president, Joseph Vianney Fernando.

Fernando said he was happy to hear the president say "the word 'minority' will be removed from our dictionary".

Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera also feels the need for unity among the Tamils and the Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority in the aftermath of the brutal war.

"Now is the time … to take prayerful, purposeful and collective steps towards an integrated, united and just Sri Lanka that has eluded us for decades," he said.

Sri Lanka's president declared victory in a speech on Tuesday, affirming the deaths of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabakaran, his son Charles Anthony and several other senior cadres.

"Our motherland has been completely liberated from separatist terrorism," he said, declaring Wednesday a national holiday.

With hundreds of thousands uprooted by the war, however, the country faces a humanitarian crisis. The secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is scheduled to visit the island nation on Friday to assess the humanitarian situation.

Aid agencies like Christian Aid, World Vision and Tearfund are working on the ground to provide basic necessities and spiritual support to the tens of thousands of people living in temporary camps.

“The priority now is to help those who have had to flee their homes to rebuild their lives … But these camps are already severely over-crowded and unable to meet the basic food and shelter needs of those who are arriving,” said Robin Greenwood, director of Christian Aid’s Asia division.

"It is very important that the government devises a medium term strategy to permanently resettle people who have been displaced, or to guarantee their safety if they return to their place of origin. Otherwise the cycle of violence may begin again in the near future."

Tearfund is, meanwhile, calling for international aid to be scaled up to reach some 250,000 displaced Tamil people and for them to be quickly allowed to return to their home areas. The Christian relief and development agency reports "appalling" conditions in many of the camps in the north of Sri Lanka where civilians are being held, and says that the international community must not become complacent now that the fighting is over.