Saturday Dec 28, 2024
Saturday Dec 28, 2024
Monday, 6 May 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
According to Human Rights Watch there are some 1,600 asylum seekers in Sri Lanka and they need the urgent protection of the Sri Lankan Government as committed to the UN when they were accepted as refugees. They include Afghans, Iranians and Pakistanis.
While most are Ahmadiyyas, there are even some Christians. I have tasted sumptuous meals prepared by them when they were working as cooks for a Christian Workers’ Fellowship lunch. One did his theology degree here and is an Anglican priest today, considered an asset to the Church here. Granting asylum to so many is one of Sri Lanka’s rare and proud achievements in support of minorities needing protection. This achievement is now under threat.
The Telegraph (UK) has reported that 1,000 Muslim refugees have been forced from their homes in retaliatory attacks following the Easter Sunday bombings. Reflecting our shame, few local newspapers have reported on this.
Says the Telegraph: “A small number of Christian refugees from the three countries have also been caught up in attacks through mistaken identity.” It quotes Tariq Ahmed, a 58-year-old Pakistani Ahmadiyyas telling the Associated Press that in Pakistan they were chased off saying they are not Muslims but “in Sri Lanka, people attack us because they say we are Muslims”.
Adds the Telegraph report: “Around 650 refugees are said to have sought shelter at a mosque in the city of Pasyala, near Negombo. Others are believed to be staying in police stations or local schools while 30 Iranians have barricaded themselves inside their homes.”
The Christian Church has responded as commanded in many places in the Bible. To quote just three that confessing Muslims too are bound by.
Many Sri Lankans, particularly Tamils, are the beneficiaries of this now internationally accepted biblical ethos underlying political asylum. The Sri Lankan Church has come forward to offer protection to threatened Muslims invigorated by Bishop Dhiloraj Canagasabey’s bold statement: “The Christian community cannot and must not act on the basis of ‘an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth’, in these trying times, […] It is sad that humans have arrogated to themselves the right to commit mass murder in the name of God Almighty the giver of Life, […] Life belongs to God and no one has the right except God to take one’s life away. […]
“We cannot and must not act on the basis of ‘an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth’ but we will follow the Master’s example and cry the same cry He cried on the cross with so much of sadness and heaviness of heart saying – ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. […] The Executive and the Legislature were busy working on their own petty agendas and it appears that those under them were also polarised and paralysed by this division. This island nation which bled for almost four decades is bleeding again. If those who have been elected genuinely loved their country, this should not have been allowed to happen. This is a total betrayal of the entire nation.”
Accordingly some refugees were housed in a church building by church leaders of the National Christian Council in Athurugiriya but overnight, church sources tell me, Buddhist monks marched on the shelter leading angry villagers. The refugees had to be sent back to the police station. The church was told by the Police that they cannot offer protection, despite that being the primary police duty. As the Government including the President told us that the Government would protect Muslims under threat, nothing was done as some virulent Buddhist Monks led the charge on the refugees. Their argument is similar to that used in June 2007, saying it is dangerous to have Tamils in Colombo.
The Defence Ministry as quoted in the Times of India then had ‘Police Chief Victor Perera’ defending the eviction: “The move was necessary to secure the capital city and protect it against bomb attacks by Tamil Tiger rebels who allegedly live among Tamil guests staying in low budget hostels.” Just read substituting the word Muslim for Tamil – it is the same hegemonic tactic of ethnic cleansing again, this time of Muslims by the Government – I say Government because it is abdicating its commitment to the UN to protect the refugees when accepting them as refugees.
Government’s refusal to act on Indian intelligence on the then imminent holocaust, reminds me of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and J.R. Jayawardene fiddling in their times as riots raged, the latter adding fuel by threatening the Tamils.
“If you want war, let there be war. If you want peace let there be peace. This is not what I say. The people of Sri Lanka say that.”
That expulsion was reversed by a successful challenge in the Supreme Court by the Centre for Policy Alternatives where M.A. Sumanthiran appeared opposing the expulsion. Today what are the people of Sri Lanka saying to Muslims through their silence and attacks on innocent refugees?
My church sources inform me that when A.T. Ariyaratne of Sarvodaya tried to take some Muslim refugees to their buildings, some monks leading villagers whipped into a rage and would not even let the refugees get off the bus. It is people like Ariyaratne and the church who are at least proving that some of us Sri Lankans are still human.
And what of the Tamils who went through the holocausts and expulsions? What are they saying? Tamil sources say that these communalist monks told the Government to send the refugees to Tamils areas if they wished but not to any other are, and that some Tamil leaders are angered.
While MP M.A. Sumanthiran is agreeable to accepting the refugees in the North in keeping with his arguments in court in 2007 and his position as a Methodist Lay Preacher, MPs Sivasakthi Anandan and Charles Nirmalanathan are vehemently opposed, the latter swearing that even if his leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan ordered him to, he would vote against the Government if the refugees were sent to the North. We Tamils are unable to learn from our expulsion from Colombo!
In response a band of true Christian leaders – and I do mean leaders more than in name – is determined to help the UN resettle these refugees among us at least till a lasting solution is found. The Ven. Fr. Sam Ponniah (Anglican Archdeacon of Jaffna) is part of this band of national leaders. They are trying to house the refugees in the homes of Christian volunteers. Fr. Ponniah hopes that by helping small groups – like 10 families in Jaffna – we can do our duty by them while ensuring their safety.
In the meantime, as rights in general are eroded, as I write (3 May, 1:00pm) the 513 Brigade has moved some 300 troops into Jaffna University and begun a search of every building. Having discovered a picture of V. Prabhakaran’s and a map of Eelam in the students’ union office besides a pair of binoculars and boots (said to be standard military gear) elsewhere, the President and Secretary of the students’ movement have been arrested. Now everyone entering the university undergoes a search. The find seems to have been a ruse for the military to tighten its grip on us.
The two arrested union leaders are ardent devotees of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress but despite most lawyers in Jaffna being from that party no one came forward to appear for them. This reflects the general fear of the armed forces. In the end, Sumanthiran, saying the two cannot go without a defence when having a Prabhakaran photo or a map of Eelam is no crime, decided to represent the abandoned unionists in court today.
Where are we heading? The answer lies in the military spokesman Brigadier Sumith Attapattu’s recent statement that even if the Government asks the military to vacate all occupied Tamil lands, they will not. And no disciplinary action! Nothing happens just like the warnings on the bombings going unheeded. Anarchy is the beginning of a dictatorship. Are the seeds of anarchy being deliberately planted?
