Sri Lanka to receive first ecumenical solidarity mission with churches facing conflict situations

 

War-torn Sri Lanka is to receive the first of a series of ecumenical "living letters" teams which will visit Christian communities facing situations of violence in different regions of the world in the run up to the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation being organized by the World Council of Churches.

 

The ecumenical team will be in Sri Lanka from 4-12 August. "Living letters" is a mission by church representatives to express solidarity with and learn from the peacemaking efforts of local churches. The team includes four church representatives - from the USA, Kenya, Indonesia and South Korea. They are to meet major church and civil society players, as well as people from the grassroots in areas affected by the fighting.

 

"We want the delegation to be exposed to the stark realities of war in the North and East before they meet church leaders and civil society representatives based in Colombo," says Rev. Dr Jayasiri Peiris, general secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka which is hosting the "living letters" team.

 

The programme of the visit includes exposure trips to areas in the northern and eastern regions of the country (Mannar, Batticaloa and Jaffna); meetings with church leaders and officials of the National Christian Council; encounters with members of congregations in the country's capital Colombo and other areas and meetings with human rights activists.

 

Conflict in Sri Lanka has over the past 25 years claimed thousands of lives on both sides of the ethnic divide between the Sinhala and Tamil communities. Thousands of refugees have sought asylum abroad while many thousands are internally displaced. The civilian population has been put through tremendous hardships due to summary executions, torture, illegal detentions, embargoes on essential items and the forced recruitment of children as fighters.

 

Despite a cease-fire agreement signed in February 2002 between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a lethal escalation of armed violence between the two parties since early 2006 has been a source of deep concern to the ecumenical family. On September 2006 the WCC central committee called both parties to respect the cease-fire agreement and put an end to all hostilities, resuming peace negotiations without delay. Last April, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia reiterated the Council's concern and appeal.

 

Churches in Sri Lanka have provided cautious and critical support to the peace process, among other things through interreligious cooperative endeavours to mobilize people for peace and national reconciliation. The "living letters" team will find out more about the churches efforts and needs, and will report back to the wider ecumenical family at a time when, in Kobia's words, "despite the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the northern and eastern parts of the country, Sri Lanka appears to have been forgotten by the international community".

 

The "living letters" teams are part of what is expected to become a major worldwide mobilization of churches for peace that will culminate with an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation to be held as conclusion of the WCC Decade to Overcome Violence in early May 2011.

 

Members of the team are:

• Professor Eunice Karanja Kamaara, a Christian ethicist from Kenya who heads the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Moi University in Nairobi.
• Dr Bo-hyuk Suh, a university professor and researcher on peace issues in the Korean peninsula and former member of the National Human Rights Commission of South Korea.
• Ms Jennifer Leath, a graduate from the Union Theological Seminary (New York), is the co-moderator of the Joint Consultative Group between Pentecostals and the WCC and a member of the newly appointed WCC youth body.
• Ms Peggy Adeline Mekel, a junior lecturer of business and economics at Sam Ratulangi University in Manado, Indonesia, is a WCC central committee member.

Mr Santha Fernando, executive secretary of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka will join the team on behalf of the local churches.

 

Support staff being sent by the WCC to accompany the delegation will include Aruna Gnanadason and Semegnish Asfaw.

 

National Christian Council of Sri Lanka 

 

WCC central committee "Statement on the conflict in Sri Lanka", September 2006

 

Statement by WCC general secretary about the escalation of violence, 20 April 2007

 

"Living letters" and the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation

 

Decade to Overcome Violence

 

ENI article on Sri Lankan churches' criticism of the glorification of war

---