Background

There has been much controversy over the shifting of the miraculous and highly venerated statue of Our Lady of Madhu to a "safer" location, further deep in Tiger Territory. With it questions have again been raised about the conduct of the Bishop of Mannar Rt.Rev.Dr. Rayappu Joseph.

Since there's heavy fighting in the region and both warring parties are being economical with the truth, no unbiased authentic account of the ground situation is available. It was earlier agreed by both parties that the Madhu church area would be a "No War Zone", but according to the Sri Lankan Army, LTTE carders have infiltrated the precincts. The LTTE strategy aims at provoking retaliatory attacks from the Army and thereby inflicting some collateral damage to the historic shrine, tarnishing the image of the government. The Tigers of course have denied the charges, and claim that the army is attacking the shrine region despite assurances to the contrary.

The Shift

There is no doubt that the shrine area was attacked by either party, and that the the "no war zone" appears to be observed mainly in the breech. The Church authorities have rightly decided that the revered statue should be removed from the area of conflict. The criticism appears to be directed at the church for shifting it further deep in to tiger territory rather than to a government controlled area. The army maintains that had they been informed of such a move it would have facilitated the safe transport of the statue.

The Bishop of Mannar has explained that the decision to shift the statue was taken suddenly after intense shelling forced the priests and staff to vacate the shrine premises temporarily. When they returned after clashes subsided, it was decided to take the shrine to a safer location. It was already dusk and the statue was hurriedly taken to a nearby church further inland.

Unfair Criticism

The Statue and shrine of Our Lady of Madhu has stood for nearly a decade in LTTE territory. The need of the hour was to take the statue to a safer location promptly, whether in government or tiger territory. Obviously there was no time to inform the Army and make arrangements to move it to government territory. Moving the statue to government controlled territory would have either meant travelling via Kilinochchi to Vavuniya or taking her across the Mannar combat lines. Either move would have been impossible. In the first instance the statue would have to pass through the Tiger capitol of Kilinochchi - beyond which the tigers would never allow it to move. Transferring the statue across the battle zone would have been insane since it would defeat the very purpose of relocating by exposing her to even more attacks.

The Bishop of Mannar

As for the frequent allegation of bias of the Mannar Bishop and his Diocesan priests towards the tigers, once again it smacks of total insensitivity to the complexity of the situation.

For one thing the Bishop has continuously stood for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. He has consistently denounced war and violence. At the last Presidential Elections he unsuccessfully appealed to his followers to exercise their franchise, contrary to LTTE orders against it. The late Maj. Gen. Parami Kulatunga was a good personal friend of his - all of this demonstrates his impartiality in the crisis.

It must stressed that a substantial portion of the Mannar Diocese lies in LTTE territory so the Bishop of Mannar is not in a position to take on the Tigers as much as he would like to. It is easy for the JHU to shout hoarse from their safe well secured confines in Colombo, but for an unarmed priest of God to openly challenge the world's most ruthless terrorists in their own territory is an impossible task.

In these difficult circumstances the Bishop of Mannar has acted with prudence, courage and wisdom, in keeping with this spiritual duties. Wrongly portraying him as a tiger sympathizer, would only serve to strengthen the terrorists and discourage the emerging moderate Tamil movement.

The demise of moderatism is the birth of extremism.