Pope urges Sri Lanka president to respect human rights and restart negotiations

(April 21, 2007) The Vatican urged Sri Lanka to respect human rights and restart negotiations with Tamil rebels during a meeting on Friday between Pope Benedict XVI and the island nation's president, Mahinda Rajapakse, the Vatican said. The meeting lasted about 20 minutes. The president was accompanied by a 16-person delegation, as well as his wife and one of his sons. Rajapakse later met Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
After the meetings the Vatican released a statement saying, «In light of the current situation in Sri Lanka, the need to respect human rights and restart the path of dialogue and negotiations was stressed, as the only path to put an end to the violence that has bloodied the island.» «The Catholic Church, which offers a significant contribution to the life of the country, will intensify the delicate commitment to form consciences, with the sole aim of favouring the common good, reconciliation and peace,» the statement said.
The rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.1 million mostly Hindu Tamils. The Tamils have faced decades of discrimination from the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese, who make up a majority of the Indian Ocean island nation's 19 million people. Christians, mostly Roman Catholics, account for about 7.5 percent. A 2002 cease-fire offered a respite from decades of violence, but fighting has resumed and Sri Lanka's top defense official said recently the cease-fire had «no meaning.»
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said earlier this week that Sri Lankan government troops and rebels had continued «enforced disappearances,» extra-judicial killings, intimidation and threats to the media. The rights group urged Pope Benedict to raise in particular the disappearance of a Catholic priest, Fr. Jim Brown, in his meeting with Rajapakse. The Vatican statement did not mention the priest. Fr. Brown disappeared after he was stopped Aug. 20 at a Sri Lanka navy checkpoint on Kayts Island, off the northern Jaffna peninsula, which is the Tamil's cultural heartland, Human Rights Watch said. Fr. Brown was witness to the killing of 15 civilians last August in a church where he was parish priest, the NorthEast Secretariat of Human Rights says. The military has denied involvement. More than 69,000 people have died in the fighting. Pope Benedict in his Easter message two weeks ago appealed for peace in Sri Lanka saying "only a negotiated solution can put an end to the conflict".