/CORRECTED REPEAT/SRI LANKA: Attacks on Churches Reflect Religious Tensions

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Dec 29 2003 (IPS) - The attacks on two churches in Buddhist-dominated Sri Lanka highlights the religious tensions that have been growing over the years between Buddhists and Christians in this South Asian country.

In the Sunday attacks, church workers said some 250 people attacked the two churches in the Ratnapura district south of the capital Colombo, smashing statues, furniture and windows. No one was hurt and no arrests have been made so far.

While the latest incidents were triggered by the death of a popular Buddhist monk two weeks ago, signs of trouble have been brewing even previously.

At least 65 churches, mostly non-Catholic ones – have been attacked this year and 15 came under attack in December alone, says Godfrey Yogarajah, general secretary of the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL). Seventy percent of Sri Lanka ‘s population of more than 19 million people is Buddhist, while the Christians make up six percent. The rest are Hindus and Muslims.

The respected monk, Gangodawila Soma, died of a heart attack during a visit to Russia, but his death nevertheless sparked allegations from Buddhist groups, including his own followers, that he was killed by Christian evangelists. The last thing war-weary Sri Lankans want is a religious war, but that is what the country’s non-Buddhist population fears at the moment as evangelists face growing accusations of coercing poor Buddhists to convert using money and other means. "This allegation that our churches are trying to convert Buddhists is unbelievable. We are not doing anything of that sort. There is no inducement given in evangelism," said Yogarajah.

He said churches have been torched and workers and pastors beaten up, adding that recent trends were to steal church records and gather membership details. "It is an information gathering exercise,” he added.

Thousands gathered at Soma’s Dec. 24 funeral, where some monks in funeral orations declared a ”holy war” against Christian groups that have been opening churches across Sri Lanka.

As fears of violence rose, President Chandrika Kumaratunga ordered troops onto the streets and increased police presence at the funeral site and churches across the island nation.

Tensions have also been fueled by the fact that followers of the monk – whose weekly sermons on television about the rights of the country’s majority Buddhist community was watched by millions – have publicly spoken of a plot by fundamentalist Christians to assassinate him.

At a post-mortem inquiry before a judge over the circumstances that led to Soma’s death, his supporters alleged that he was number four on a ‘hit list’ of an unnamed Christian group, a charge that Yogarajah rejected.

"We are a harmless group and violence is a non-existent word,” Yogarajah said. Lalith Kotelawela, a Christian businessman whose name has been linked to the murder conspiracy allegations that have been appearing on posters, added in a statement. In his television appearances, the outspoken Soma had striven hard to inculcate in Sinhala Buddhists the importance of protecting Buddhism. He also fought against unethical conversions by fundamentalist groups, which he said had reached ”alarming proportions”. Yet the monk was also praised the teachings of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. The allegations of a plot around Soma’s death have continued despite the fact that three eminent doctors, who performed the post-mortem examination here, decreed that he died of a heart attack. The panel said there were indications that he had had a previous heart attack too.

The Sri Lankan ambassador in Moscow reported that the Moscow hospital where the monk was being treated for a heart ailment – just after he arrived in Russia – had also concluded that Soma’s cause of death was from a heart attack. But the suspicions are a reflection of larger accusations that people like Maduluwawe Sobhitha, another outspoken monk, make about a strategy by foreign non-governmental organisations here to convert Buddhists, especially those in rural areas.

Newspapers have quoted him as saying that this is a strategy similar to that used in India and Nepal, where poor villagers are approached by social workers who run health clinics and pre-schools. But on Sunday, Sobhita, interviewed on MTV television, criticised the attacks on churches and urged Buddhists to follow the path of non-violence. This call was repeated Sunday by Hindu Affairs Minister T Maheswaran during an international Hindu conference in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

Earlier this year, he himself had spoken of proposed legislation to outlaw unethical conversions, saying that fundamental Christian groups are making inroads in the Hindu-dominated northern region. He says that more than 7,000 Hindu families have been converted to Christianity in the north-east and central provinces of Sri Lanka in the past 10 years.

Maheswaran also said he had obtained a copy of the anti-conversion law passed by the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "This will serve as a model for the legislation to be passed in our country," he said. Justice Minister W J M Lokubandara has also said that he is exploring possibilities of either introducing tough new laws or strengthening existing provisions under the penal code to curb unethical religious conversions.

In a statement last week, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka said that some activities of fundamental Christian sects have begun to endanger the peaceful co-existence among different sectors of the Sri Lankan community.

"The Catholic Church is not bent on getting people of other religions converted by wrongful and illegitimate means," said the statement issued by Archbishop Rt Rev Oswald Gomis and Bishop Rev Marius Peiris.

"While condemning unlawful acts, alleged to be perpetrated by Fundamentalist Sects, we condemn with equal force, all unlawful acts of violence such as destruction of places of worship and manhandling of church workers that are presently reported to be taking place with increasing frequency," the bishops said.

Yogarajah also adds that in truth, the majority community in Sri Lanka has nothing to fear – the 2002 national census showed that less than one percent of Sri Lanka’s Christians are members of the evangelical church.

"We are a small group and no threat to any particular community,” he added.