TNS Corner
No LTTE presence in Madhu: Bishop Rayappu

Mar 18, 2008, 04:56

By Charles Ratnam - TNS

VAVUNIYA – Bishop of Mannar Rt. Rev. Rayappu said, there is no LTTE presence in the Madhu church premises or the camping area. He also emphasised that the LTTE wouldn’t be allowed to operate in the area under his purview.

The military top brass in the region had been briefed on this situation, he further said. Earlier the army wants the Bishop to persuade the LTTE to withdraw four artillery and mortar positions, which, it says, are located within the Madhu church area.

The military said the LTTE had repeatedly fired their big guns at the troops deployed in the area but the army had refrained from retaliating out of respect for the much venerated shrine.

The LTTE also has denied the army’s claim that it had moved artillery pieces and mortars into the Madhu church premises. In Earlier occasions the artillery shells fired by the armed forces resulted civilians casualties in the Madhu Shrine.

Many of the internally displaced people, mostly Catholics took refuge at the shrine and the adjourning camping area, according to relief officials in the area.

Earlier the Bishop of Colombo, the Rt Revd Duleep de Chickera in a statement said, “The values of a democratic system that should spontaneously protect them and uphold their rights as citizens of this country, have sadly eroded.”  “All other democratic institutions including the Opposition seem hopelessly incapable of correcting this very dangerous trend,” he further said in his statement.

“Recent news reports about the continuing harassment and arrests of media persons are both disturbing and frustrating. Today the focus of the whole Nation is on the brazen and systematic violence against several Rupavahini media persons, and the recent arrest and indefinite detention without access to lawyers of a group of journalists associated with a news web site and printing press. These media persons and their families, friends and colleagues feel utterly helpless and vulnerable and have no one to turn to for justice,” he said.