SMH – Victory for Gillard as safe spot found for Ferguson
Catholic Leader – Call for Pope to visit Sri Lanka
A BRISBANE priest and a doctor have supported Pope Benedict’s recent call to the Sri Lankan Government to free displaced civilians from internment camps.
However, both Dominican Father Pan Jordan and Dr Brian Senewiratne believe the Pope must visit Sri Lanka to have any impact on the mistreatment of the estimated 250,000 Tamil people imprisoned in camps in the country’s north.
Both also say, given the appalling conditions in their home country, it is no wonder that Tamils are fleeing by boat to find refuge in countries including Australia.
Pope Benedict was recently reported as noting “with satisfaction” that the Sri Lankan Government was making an effort to allow for those displaced by the decades-long civil war to return to their homes.
But Fr Jordan and Dr Senewiratne, who have considerable experience of life in Sri Lanka, said many of these people had no homes to return to.
Fr Jordan, who was born into a Tamil family in the northern town of Adampan in 1954, and who has returned to Sri Lanka in the years since becoming a priest, most recently in April this year, keeps in regular contact with priests and religious sisters in the strife-torn country.
“My contacts report that many of the Tamil people have had their homes destroyed,” Fr Jordan said.
“Others return only to find their homes occupied by the Singhalese.”
Life is also dangerous for Tamils that are not kept in internment camps.
In 2007, a former government minister estimated that one person disappeared every five hours in Sri Lanka. More
Crikey – When it comes to the boat people issue, Rudd is drowning
The above article by Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane appeared in yesterdays (18/11) Crikey
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