The Peace Secretariat welcomes the extremely dignified manner in which Sri Lankan forces regained control of the Madhu Church premises on behalf of the people of Sri Lanka. Whilst anti-governmental organizations persist in talking about indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the record of the forces, in which not one civilian life has been lost in the course of army offensives, speaks for itself.

The incident at Kathiravelli, seventeen months ago, the only one about which LTTE propagandists can make adverse comments, is the exception that proves the rule: even propagandists have to grant that the LTTE opened fire first, and that their forces had been moving around and that there were bunkers in the premises to which mortar directing radar had guided the response of the armed forces. After the adverse propaganda surrounding the removal of the sacred statue to LTTE controlled territory, it must have been tempting for the forces to establish control swiftly of the Madhu premises. Despite evidence of the LTTE using the site as a military camp and stockpiling weapons there, the forces graciously, so as to ensure that there was no damage for the premises, waited for the LTTE to withdraw. Such an action, unthinkable in the forces of other countries battling terrorism, confirms the vision of the armed forces as to the pluralistic nature of Sri Lankan society.

Their prompt restoration of the site to its rightful custodians, the church authorities, once the danger of LTTE offensive threats emanating from there was removed, makes clear that their struggle is neither sectarian nor divisive, but based on the highest principles of national integrity and integration. We hope that now the Catholic hierarchy will respond in kind, and make clear its understanding too of the need for law and order and democratic pluralism in Sri Lanka. We appreciate that clergy functioning in areas under the control of the LTTE have been under pressure, and must safeguard their flock, but their training, like that of the armed forces, must have ensured that they can behave with dignity and in accordance with the highest principles. They have an enormous role to play in the reconstruction that must follow liberation of the people from totalitarian terrorism, and their conduct now can make clear their suitability for this role. Certainly the explosive response of the LTTE to the restoration to sacred purposes of the Madhu Sanctuary makes clear the need for the Church to dissociate itself from their activities. Providing spiritual comfort and humanitarian assistance to individuals must be separated from what could be construed as support for terrorism. The calculated killing of so many innocents in the explosion at Piliyandala must be condemned for what it is, callous brutality, with no holding of a spurious balance that in effect privileges terror, given its single-minded viciousness, over the professional decency of the Sri Lankan forces. 

After the sacred MADHU shrine and its precincts fell under the care of valiant troops, Rt Rev ANTONY VICTOR SOOSAI, Deputy for MANNAR Diocese arrived at the holly premises to inspect the most venerated shrine.

Half a century ago the Anglo-Catholic writer C S Lewis described in a novel entitled That Hideous Strength the relentless slide into violent extremism of forces devoted only to their own aggrandizement. The infernal machine that results makes no distinctions as to its victims, and in the end destroys its apologetic as well as its devoted adherents. Clergy in the north may be under pressure, but in the end their allegiance must be to their religion and its established order, and there can be no compromise with terror and its infernal machinery. And the Catholic Church as a whole should even now dissociate itself firmly from the infernal machine that dominates an ever smaller space with ever greater brutality, and set itself firmly in the mainstream of democratic pluralist Sri Lankan society.

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary General

Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process