Anglican Head Presses for Peace in Sri Lanka

By Ethan Cole, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican Communion is visiting Sri Lanka this week in an effort to facilitate peace negotiations as tensions escalate between the government and the separatists in the South Asian country.

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will spend four days in the troubled nation of Sri Lanka as part of his South East Asia tour. His May 7-10 visit to Sri Lanka will include meetings and discussions with religious and civil leaders in the country as well as visits to churches to see them at work.

"I'm very much aware of the continuing difficulties being faced by the country and the present situation gives cause for real concern," said Williams, in a statement. "Sri Lanka is a place in which conflict and violence has become a reflexive response to political difficulty and it is clear that people are suffering greatly. It is a very difficult situation and one which is constantly in our prayers. We trust that the witness of Christians in Sri Lanka will go on helping to provide real grounds for hope."

Sri Lanka has suffered from fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for two-decades with a few years of peace after the two parties signed a Cease Fire Agreement on Feb. 2, 2002. Yet sporadic fights continued even after the agreement was signed with the conflict intensifying since the end of 2005.

The rebel group LTTE says that it is fighting to create a separate state for the country's 3.1 million ethnic minority Tamils, which it says is discriminated in Sri Lanka.

Currently, there are some 290,000 civilians displaced as a result of the conflict, reported the United Nations in March 2007.

Williams, besides meeting with church leaders, will also meet with Buddhist representatives and those of other faiths.

Nearly 70 percent of the country is Buddhist while Christians compose less than 10 percent of the population, according to The CIA Factbook.

The Anglican leader will be briefed on the political situation by government, opposition and Tamil representatives as well as civil society leaders.

Williams' South Asia tour began on Saturday with his visit to Malaysia for the consecration and enthronement of the Rev. Ng Moon Hing as the fourth Bishop of West Malaysia in St. Mary's Cathedral in Kuala Lumpur. The Archbishop of Canterbury also met with senior Anglican clergies and heads of the country's other Christian denominations.

His last stop will be Singapore where he will participate in a consultation on The Anglican Way, part of the Anglican Communion's work in theological education.
The Archbishop will return to the United Kingdom on Sunday, May 13.