MISSION PARTNER NEWSLETTER FROM SRI LANKA: March 2009
February 27th 2009. Several of our students have been desperate for news of their families who have been caught up in the fighting between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Army. Two weeks ago one student heard that his parents had missed a vital bus out of the war zone. Shortly afterwards he saw his father’s name on a Red Cross list of the dead. Then, earlier this week, he heard that both his parents were in Trincomalee hospital, with only minor injuries. So, together with two other students (one Sinhalese to provide credibility with the police and army, and one fully tri-lingual Tamil to ensure communication across the language divide) he travelled north. The student hadn’t seen his parents for five years. The joyful reunion and the transfer of his parents to a camp in a safer area form the happy ending to this particular story. But this contrasts with the stories of the families of other students. An aunt and two cousins of one student have been killed, and the uncle of another. Another student went to Vavuniya where there are 14 known camps holding civilians who have been taken there by the army. He wanted to find his family. As a Tamil student this was dangerous because he could easily have been detained. He didn’t find any of his loved ones but he was able to help a number of people, including re-uniting a woman in hospital with her baby. Tragically, the woman is unable to feed her baby because she has lost her arms through shelling. Also the baby had to be returned to its own camp. A sympathetic female guard promised to bring the baby regularly. The student spent all his money on supplies for people in the camps, and threw food and sanitary pads over the barbed wire. A minister, passing through the college, told similar stories of patients with horrific injuries in hospitals in the north west where some have been evacuated. The wounded have even been brought to the General Hospital here in Kandy but only the Hospital Christian Fellowship is allowed to visit them.
The family of our home-help, Chandrani (centre right) who comes to us each Thursday, at home for the 3- month death anniversary alms-giving of her father in-law. She is a devout Buddhist who makes regular pilgrimages. Her nephew, a soldier, is still missing, presumed dead – but there has been no funeral or ceremony for him while a little hope remains.
There is a real sense amongst the students and staff that the college should be doing something to help. The Principal, Acting Principal and three Kandy clergy are currently in Vavuniya assessing the situation to determine what can be done by the students and whether the difficulties and dangers are proscriptive or acceptable. Meanwhile, Kandy Methodist Circuit is gathering clothes for the patients in Kandy hospital.
1st March 2009: After church this morning we learned that the College’s mission to Vavuniya did not find an atmosphere conducive to help from Christians. This was because a Tamil minister in the East had taken it upon himself to tell the BBC details about the civilian suffering. This has upset the government for whom an anti-Christian bias has been confirmed. However, one good piece of news is that five international NGOs including ICRC and Oxfam are now being allowed into the camps.
In writing all this we rather assume readers to be aware from recent world -wide news coverage that the previously under-reported war in the north seems to be reaching its final stage. The conventional military power of the LTTE is now confined to a small area in the north east together with a large number of civilians who appear to be being used as “human shields”. The number of such civilians is not clear – figures between 80,000 and 200,000 are common. The Sri Lankan Army, however, is continuing its offensive and intense fighting is reported. A LTTE request for a ceasefire was considered “hilarious” by the government newspaper, The Daily News. Meanwhile, the police and army are taking precautions to protect people elsewhere from attacks by LTTE cadres who might be hiding in the jungle. A remote Sinhalese village in the south was attacked this week and 13 civilians were killed.
The true death toll of this war may never be known. Figures given by the government usually tell of the Army inflicting huge casualties on the LTTE. There are rumours of lorries full of bodies arriving at hospital mortuaries miles away from the battle zone. We’ve heard three such reports. The need to keep the true human cost of the war from the people and to keep up the morale of the army partly explain the diminishing press freedom and a deteriorating human rights record that is regularly criticised by foreign governments. The murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the truly brave editor of the Sunday Leader, is part of a wider campaign against a free media. His newspaper is now noticeably less vociferous, and his wife, a senior editor, and others have fled the country. His moving posthumous editorial predicting his own death – published widely outside Sri Lanka – may well become a classic text for students of human rights. The BBC World Service has withdrawn programmes that were carried on a government radio channel after the government blocked out any reports critical of the war. This can be justified locally only by exploiting the xenophobia that for many lies just beneath the surface. An article in today’s Leader was entitled “Why are Western Journalists Anti-Lanka?” We too are careful what we photograph and write. A recent visitor of ours was asked by a policeman to delete her photographs of a hydroelectric plant near Kandy.
Harshana, Michael, Sanath, Vathsala, Rosemary and Dilan on the long journey home from Galle on TCL Sunday
We have said it often in our newsletters - and it is still true – life in Kandy continues as if there is no war at all. College life goes on. Last Sunday was TCL Sunday when the students spread out across the island in small groups to conduct services and fly the TCL flag. This year we took a lovely group to the beautiful southern town of Galle, famous for its large Dutch quarter within the sturdy walls of a huge fort. There was lots of singing in the van, and we even saw stilt-fishermen as we drove along the coast road at dusk. We also visited a funeral house where one of our students’ brothers lay in his coffin guarded by elephant tusks. He leaves four children, the youngest being just three. Next Friday is English Day, and James is rehearsing a little play about a disastrous wedding. This seems horribly trivial but the students want to do it.
Just like the No. 68 bus, after a long gap, we’ve had three different visits from people in UK in a single month. First Margaret and Susan Greaves and Janet Sherwell from Sandon Rd Methodist Church, Birmingham visited as part of a holiday. Then there was an official visit by three theological educators, Reverends Dr. David Hewlett, Gary Hall and Andrew Lunn. Finally, we were very pleased to welcome Mike King, Team Leader of the World Church Relationships Group at Methodist Church House, our senior British boss. We took them all for a stroll round Peradenyia Botanical Gardens, and the two groups also went to Nuwara Eliya to visit Matt and Rebecca of Beacon Hill Academy. Joy and Bryan Jones of Wroughton Methodist Church are about to return for their 2nd visit.
The weather for our visitors was uniformly ideal – warm and dry. Unfortunately, the usually dry February was preceded by an unseasonably dry January. The reservoirs in the hills are very low and people can walk across the Mahaweli, the longest river in Sri Lanka that happens to go through Kandy. In Nuwara Eliya the supply is only turned on now for a short time each day. Amazingly we have had few power cuts even though the water levels in the hydro schemes are so low. The hottest two months, March and April, are to come, and Buddhist monks are today conducting ceremonies around Kandy Lake to invoke rain.
James has continued working with the Dean on the new academic database, which has gone well, in addition to his
normal duties (looking after computers and English teaching).
James has been doing some extra English classes on Tuesday evenings for those who failed a vital exam.
Rosemary has enjoyed her teaching this term: Mission and Ministry of Paul to the 2nd years, Gospel Studies to the Spouses and additional teaching on other courses as required. She hasn’t done so much music since she left Royal Holloway many years back: playing piano for some TCL chapel and Kandy Methodist Church services, helping out at TCL Choir practice for western hymns and taking the theory classes which limp along. The choir mentioned in the last newsletter resumes in March. And we are currently preparing two students, Harshana and Indradevi, to go Goudhurst Parish in Kent in the long vacation.
Children play on the newly installed tyres in the College Nursery playground. Rosemary remains nominally in charge of the Nursery
As we are about to enter our fifth and final year here, we are very conscious of all that we will miss about TCL and Sri Lanka. It is a privilege to serve students from such diverse backgrounds but the longer we are here, the more complex and intractable does the ethnic situation seem. Most of our students have known nothing but a country at war with itself. Their years here at TCL are thus vital in challenging them to meet the needs of this country. Despite its failings, it is only the churches amongst the religions that includes both Sinhalese and Tamils as its members, and the life we share here at TCL should be a beacon of hope in this terribly divided & complex country.
Newsletter back copies are on our website together with a large number of pictures of our life in Sri Lanka: see www.rosemaryandjames.methodistchurch.co.uk. Our postal address is: The Theological College of Lanka, Nandana Uyana, Pilimatalawa 20450, Sri Lanka.
We ask for prayers/thoughts for all the issues and people mentioned in this newsletter.
Þ For the sick, injured and dying of all ages, in the camps for those displaced by the ongoing war;
Þ For a swift end to the fighting and magnanimity on the part of the government towards the Tamil people of the north and east;
Þ For the brave journalists who continue to write reports critical of the government and its doings;
Þ For our college community where some students suffer as they still don’t know the whereabouts of their families.
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