Dr.P.A.Samaraweera, Australia

After the cancerous presentation by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission a large number expressed their views about the role of the Catholic Church, which worked hand in glove with the terrorists to break up the sovereignity ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Sri Lanka with the intention of destroying Buddhism for the purpose of conversion.
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During the hey day of the LTTE, when Bishop Rasayappah Joseph, Bishop T. Saundranayagam and so on were molly coddling the terrorists, it was heartening to note the emergence of a Nationalist Christian Movement which was at odds with the Catholic Churches official policy of accommodating Prabhakaran and the LTTEƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  as crusaders, despite the overwhelming evidence of crimes against humanity on LTTE’s part. In this connection, I am referring to the Patriotic Christian Movement which in a letter to the Island on Sept. 23 1999 condemned the Catholic Church for attempting to demoralise the army and legitimise the killings ofƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  innocent civilians by the LTTE. They asked the public to reject the Catholic clerics and the Church ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ who were campaigning for the government to accede to the demands of the terrorists.
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During the conflict for 3 decades the Church took the stand that the ethnic crisisƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  was a conflict between the Sinhala Buddhists and the Tamils and it is not an issue between the state and the terrorists.
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The long term plan of the Church is conversion of people. For example, the Pope in 1999 ran into a stormƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  in India when he referred to ‘Conversion’ as a ‘Human Right’ with his call for greater evangalisation in Asia and when he declared his sinister design to target Asia for the 3rd millennium. Followed by this declaration, the Hindu Zealots and the Visha Hindu Prashad proposed that legislation be passed in Nepal and India to prevent conversion.
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Conversion which began in Sri Lanka with the arrival of the Portuguese has not ceased but now done surreptitiously by giving handouts to those who are not well 0ff.