Churches to stage massive rally for peace in Sri Lanka

Plans are underway to organise a massive rally by end of April for "justice and peace" in Sri Lanka where over 70,000 people have been killed since 1983.

The Ecumenical Clergy Forum for Human Rights (ECFoHR) at a meeting in the Church of North India headquarters, on Tuesday, said a rally joined by all churches in India would be held on April 29 - to "support efforts to combat the injustice in the island nation."

The ecumenical forum consists of representations from the Church of South India, Roman Catholic Fraternities, Methodist Churches in India, Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church, Salvation Army, Lutheran Church and Indian Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

The criticality of such a rally, ECFoHR said, comes at a time when more than 1,00,000 innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka are tormented by war. "Hundreds of Schools and Hospitals were bombed and demolished; several humanitarian service institutions were forced to vacate the war zone by the army," it said.

Urging the Indian government to call on the Sinhalese government to stop the war against innocent civilians including children, the ecumenical body said, "Indian govt must do this not just because it is a neighboring country but also because it is a member of SAARC."

Christopher Rajkumar, Secretary, Commission on Justice, Peace and Creation - NCCI, urged the International Communities to involve in relief, rehabilitation and re-construction of victims in the affected areas.

He opined that the issue would not be solved by military means but only political means through dialogue between the parties. "So we call on the International Community to pursue this course of action to initiate the possibilities of bringing peace and to meditate the negotiations."

The United Nations estimates that about 150,000 to 190,000 innocent people are trapped in the conflict zone in the northern Vanni region of the South Asian island nation.

The UN has also been urged to send an independent and International fact finding team to visit the affected areas to assess the real damage. "We propose UNO must play a peace-building role by initiating and mediating the peace talks to grant political freedom to the Tamil minorities."

Last week, according to the Christian Post, religious freedom groups called on Christians around the world to pray for humanitarian efforts to reach uprooted Sri Lankan civilians.

This was addressed in "The Toronto Statement" signed by 17 non-government organizations from around the world including: Open Doors International (Holland), Christian Solidarity Worldwide (United Kingdom), The Voice of the Martyrs (Canada), All India Christian Council (India), China Aid (USA), and the Religious Liberty Commission of World Evangelical Alliance (representing 128 countries).

The civil war between the Singhalese government and the extremist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is one of the world's deadliest ongoing armed conflicts.