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Religious tension increasing in Sri Lanka

Buddhists engaged in religious observances during the ``Nonagathaya,'' the period without auspicious times that is usually spent on religious observances only, at the Kelaniya temple on the outskirts of Colombo last month. PHOTO: EPA

Crises in Sri Lanka come in deadly waves. After the immense loss of life and destruction in the tsunami disaster last December, the latest waves to pose a major threat have come in the form of religion-inspired violence and extremism.

The east of Sri Lanka, where all three major communities (the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims) live in near equal proportions, is the crucible of emerging unrest and violence.

Along with resettlement programs for those displaced by the tsunami, there are new problems among the Sinhalese and Muslim communities, which until recently lived in relative harmony. Some Sinhala Buddhist extremists have erected statues of the Buddha in hitherto predominantly Muslim settlements. While this is galling to Muslims, it makes for a good rallying call for extremist Muslim politicians to raise fears that the rights of Muslims are being threatened by the country's majority Sinhalese Buddhists Muslims fear the new Buddha statues as harbingers of future Sinhalese settlements in traditional Muslim villages. The militant Buddhist monk, Venerable Omalpe Sobhitha Thera, says the entirety of Sri Lanka has always been dedicated to the Buddha and challenges the right of Muslims or any others to protest about the erection of new Buddha statues anywhere.

Muslims in the east of the island increasingly fear that the Tamil Tigers, who drove them out of the north 20 years ago, will target them again, this time in the east. The Karuna faction, a breakaway group of the Tamil Tigers, operates in that part of the island and increased clashes between the Northern Tigers led by Velupillai Prabhakaran and the Eastern Karuna faction threaten Muslims caught in the crossfire between rival Tamil separatists.

Eastern Muslims also fear that a proposed post-tsunami mechanism of relief and reconstruction between the government and the Northern Tigers may even ignore Muslim aspirations. This has spurred an increase in militancy among Muslim youth.

It is an open secret that Eastern Muslim youth undergo guerrilla military training in the jungles and that some describe themselves as Jihadists, supporting a Holy War to protect those areas in which they live. There are also allegations that young Sri Lankan Muslims are involved in arms smuggling and that they go abroad for secret military training.

Theological differences are also emerging between the adherents of Sufism and the majority Sunni population which has led to clashes between the two communities.

Into this volatile mix of Muslims fearing Buddhist expansionism, internecine clashes among the Muslim community and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, come the evangelical Christians. Since the devastating tidal wave at the end of last year there have been suggestions that a large number of Christian organizations, mainly funded from the US, are using the hardships of those who have suffered from the tsunami as a way of winning converts to their form of Christianity.

The government in Colombo has already taken note of extremist Buddhist demands and obtained Cabinet approval for a Bill to outlaw unethical conversion.
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