MP Jayalath raises an issue of propriety with the South!

- The Sudar Oli Editorial

(August 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) UNP Parliamentarian Jayalath Jayawardena has raised an issue of propriety for which the South must respond according to the dictates of its conscience. The issue he has raised is an issue of great significance. He questions the propriety of taking a large number of devotees to Madhu Church and holding the annual festival, while the people in the environs of the Church are displaced and living as refugees without proper shelter to live, food to eat and clothes to wear, following the on going military operation in the area.

"While the 60, 000 people of Mullaitheevu and Killinochchi district are displaced due to the military operations in the Vanni district, while the government is insensitive to the sufferings of these people - children, pregnant and elders, and while the government is disinterested in alleviating their miseries, it is meaningless for the government to show interest in taking devotees from the South to the Madu Church to hold the festival", Jayawardena charges.

One is inclined to ask why there is such discrimination in a democratic country. He has pointed out that the people in Vanni are unable to have even one meal a day.

The strategies of the government to take devotees from the South to the Madhu Church, hold the annual festival and celebrate the military victory in the guise of Church festival has been crippled following the decisions by Bishop of Mannar Rev.Fr.Rayapuu Josef.

(An English translation of the Editorial in The Sudar Oli, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo)
- Sri Lanka Guardian