Vatican Urges Sri Lanka to respect human rights

Vatican Urges Sri Lanka to respect human rights, restart dialogue

The Vatican urged Sri Lanka to respect human rights and restart negotiations with Tamil rebels during a meeting Friday between Pope Benedict XVI and the island nation's president, Mahinda Rajapakse, the Vatican said.

Rajapakse met with Benedict and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, as part of a four-day visit to Italy.

"In light of the current situation in Sri Lanka, the need to respect human rights and restart the path of dialogue and negotiations was stressed, as the only path to put an end to the violence that has bloodied the island," a Vatican statement said.

"The Catholic Church, which offers a significant contribution to the life of the country, will intensify the delicate commitment to form consciences, with the sole aim of favoring the common good, reconciliation and peace," the statement said.

The Tamils have faced decades of discrimination from the predominantly Sinhalese, who make up a majority of the Indian Ocean island nation's 19 million people.

A 2002 cease-fire offered a respite from decades of violence, but fighting has resumed and Sri Lanka's top defense official said recently the cease-fire had "no meaning."

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said earlier this week that Sri Lankan government troops and rebels had continued "enforced disappearances," extra-judicial killings, intimidation and threats to the media.

It urged Benedict to raise in particular the disappearance of a Catholic priest, the Rev. Thiruchchelvan Nihal Jim Brown, in his meeting with Rajapakse. The Vatican statement did not mention the priest.

Brown disappeared after he was stopped Aug. 20 at a Sri Lanka navy checkpoint on Kayts Island, off the northern Jaffna peninsula, which is the Tamil's cultural heartland, Human Rights Watch said.

Brown was witness to the killing of 15 civilians last August in a church where he was parish priest, the NorthEast Secretariat of Human Rights says. The military has denied involvement.

More than 69,000 people have died in the fighting.

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