Caritas Sri Lanka - SEDEC

A way to secure peace and progress in Sri Lanka

Your Excellency Most Rev Dr Joseph Spiteri, Apostolic Nuncio in Sri Lanka, Monsignor Robinson Wijesinghe, Reverend Fathers, Reverend Sisters and friends, I am here this afternoon to represent His Lordship Bishop Kingsley Swampillai who is unable to be present due to some urgent commitments. In his place, I will try my best to rise to the task expected of me and speak on the subject “ Healing and reconciliation, mutual understanding and respect – a way to secure peace and progress in Sri Lanka “.
We are meeting at a time when the question of a lasting, permanent peace in our country still remains unanswered and the way forward towards this goal still remains shrouded in uncertainty, lack of a common will, lack of genuine intention and a state of near hopelessness. Such an atmosphere definitely does not help to bring about healing, reconciliation, mutual understanding and respect which are all important milestones on the path to true peace in post-war Sri Lanka.

The time is opportune for the Church to position or brand itself in this important and urgent task of healing a wounded nation. It is time to strengthen our own belief that the Church can play a meaningful role in this process. The Church roles in actualizing the Good Friday Agreement of Ireland and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa are sources of inspiration indeed. Here in Sri Lanka, the Church has the distinguishing feature of having Tamils and Sinhalese as its members. There are hardly any Tamil Buddhists or Sinhala Hindus, and this alone places the
Church in a unique position to constantly move forward towards reconciliation and healing. Though we have known this fact for a long time, now is the moment to translate our knowledge into action and chart a new course through serious re-thinking. We have to re-invent ourselves. We have to re-imagine new possibilities in our approach to the important issues at hand. Otherwise, we will fail the nation in this most crucial hour when it is struggling to its feet after many decades of hurting itself and its people.
We have to offer Christian alternatives to communities that are fragmented through suspicion, fear and distrust. We have to fearlessly advance the values of truth, forgiveness, acceptance and dialogue and thereby help divided people to once again reach out to each other.

Truth, as we know, is the first casualty of war, and this is true in Sri Lanka. We still do not know the true extent of the loss of life and property. The figures we have are disturbing enough already. Much more still remains unknown but we should be determined to know it, because truth-telling is one of the vital ingredients of reconciliation. Yet, many are afraid of the truth, and as long as it remains unspoken, forgiveness which brings about true healing, will also remain unachieved.

Forgiveness helps to renew broken relationships but yet, it has been described as the most difficult human transaction. Christian examples of forgiveness abound in the gospels. Pope John Paul’s forgiveness of the man who tried to kill him gives us a shattering insight into gospel values. Another true story of forgiveness which emerged from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is narrated in the book “ Call me David” by John McSweeney and I quote it below:
A frail black woman stands slowly to her feet. She is over seventy years of age. Facing her across the court room are several white security officers, one of whom, Mr. Van de Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman's son and husband some years before.
It was indeed Mr Van de Broek, it has been established, who had come into the woman's home many years back, had taken her son, shot him at point-blank range and then burned the young man's body on a fire while he and his officers held a party. Seven years later Van de Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband's disappearance, Van de Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a place beside a river, where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips, as the officer poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame, were `Father, forgive them.'

And now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confession offered by Mr. Van de Broek. A member of the commission turns to her and asks, `So, what do you want? How can justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?'

‘I want three things” began the woman, calmly but confidently. `I want first to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned so that I can gather the dust and give his remains a decent burial.' She pauses, then continues, `My husband and son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for Mr Van de Broek to become my son. I would like him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend time with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I have remaining within me.

And finally,' she says, `I want a third thing. I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. Van de Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know he is truly forgiven.

As the court assistant comes to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr Van de Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. And as he does, those in the courtroom - friends, family and neighbours, who were all victims of decades of oppression and injustice - begin to sing softly the great hymn, `Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...'

(unquote)

Truth-telling also leads to dialogue which is capable of creating its own miracle:
it can bring relationship into being, and it can bring into being once again a relationship that has died. There is only one qualification to these claims for dialogue: it must be mutual and proceed from both sides, and the parties to it must persist relentlessly. The word of dialogue may be spoken by one side but evaded or ignored by the other, in which case the promise may not be fulfilled. There is risk in entering into dialogue – but when two persons undertake it and accept their fear of doing so, the miracle-working power of dialogue may be released. The Scriptures show that by dialogue we can let God into our world because in dialogue we open ourselves to one another, and in so doing, we open ourselves to God. When man is open to man and God, miracles have to happen. But they are forged out of everyday events: the conflicts, failures, misunderstandings and tragedies of living together. The Christian’s hope is based on the belief that in Jesus Christ, dialogue was revealed as a principle of renewal. When we seek one another in honest exchange, we may find ourselves in communion with God.
What of reconciliation itself? In Sri Lanka, we can be fairly certain that in the absence of a genuine effort towards true reconciliation, the country could easily slide back into the agony of the past, and that is unthinkable! In South Africa, reconciliation, integration and innovation helped to erase divisions, and Nelson Mandela was able to unify his country and put it on the path to development, whereas in Zimbabwe the revenge and mismanagement of Robert Mugabe and his failure to reconcile, led to the ruination of his liberated country. We have to learn from the mistakes of others while at the same time learning from our own past mistakes. In fact, lessons learnt are great building blocks in the architecture of progress and, quite rightly therefore, lessons learnt are also an important mandate of the current Presidential Commission.

And what of healing and reconciliation within the Church ? Definitely, a great need exists for a ‘ coming together ‘, as was clearly revealed during the North-South dialogue of Bishops, priests and nuns which I, as the National Director of SEDEC, had the occasion to convene in Colombo last year. Prior to that, we had held two separate meetings with the clergy and religious of Mannar and Jaffna dioceses. The Colombo meeting was a forum for sharing of experiences which saw a frank, forthright and cordial exchange among the participants. One of the grievances of the representatives from the North and East was that when the people in those regions were undergoing immense suffering due to the escalation of war, the Church in the South remained silent and did nothing to raise a voice to prevent the massive loss of life and property. The participants from the North and East voiced that they were actually in two minds as to whether they should even attend this dialogue session in Colombo because for them, there was nothing to dialogue about after everything was over and their people had faced the worst. The challenge now is to clear all the misgivings and unite the Church on all fronts through a process of healing.

What else can we do? A People to People Programme is another useful mechanism that can make a difference. Ordinary people around the world, by means of their creative approaches and compassion, have succeeded in transforming apparently hopeless situations. We are capable of achieving much more than we sometimes think. Arts and cultural activities as well as sports are tracks that offer many possibilities because of the wide range of people they are able to reach. Also, relatively unknown is the peace building potential of the business sector. Peace is profitable – a fact that came to be realized by the business communities in South Africa and Ireland where many companies and Chambers of Commerce came to the conclusion that they too can play an important role in the transition from violence to peace.

This multi-track diplomacy, as it is called, is flourishing in many parts of the world and is a way of taking the bottom-up approach. Excellent examples of such successful initiatives taken by ordinary citizens, Churches, women’s groups, NGO’s, the media and business leaders in many parts of the world have demonstrated their potential for building peace. Through citizen participation, it is quite possible to make the transition from a violent past to a culture of peace.

Human Rights Education is another important tool which will help to prepare people for acceptance of, and respect for, others’ rights. A guarantee of rights will ensure justice, which in turn, is an essential ingredient for peace. All the major religions emphasize human rights, though from different perspectives. We must make a concerted effort to gain insights into what these religious perspectives are, and disseminate such values to the community at large. In this way, people are not only made aware of their own rights but are also conscientized about their obligations towards others. Building a strong human rights culture is an important step towards guaranteeing the individual, social, cultural, political and economic rights, and in ensuring religious freedom, the freedom of association, the freedom of information, the freedom of language use and a host of other democratic freedoms necessary for the sustenance of a just society.

In conclusion, may I express my appreciation of the efforts taken by Monsignor Robinson Wijesinghe to launch a collection of hymns and to use the proceeds of the sale of this CD for the peace and reconciliation work of the Church. While congratulating him and wishing God’s choicest blessings on his good labour, I am deeply convinced that efforts such as these, however small, will help to bring about a dynamic change in our society and ultimate healing to the wounded hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Thank you.