Jaffna remembers Fr Jimbrown, “symbol” of war atrocities
Colombo (AsiaNews) – Prayers and commemoration ceremonies were held today in Colombo, Mannar and Jaffna to mark the first anniversary of the disappearance of Fr Thiruchelvam Nihal Jimbrown and his assistant, Wenceslaus Vimalathas. The day served to remember the priest’s selfless courage and to draw attention to all victims of daily abductions and killings in the northern peninsula of Jaffna. It was here that the Catholic priest and his assistant, a father of five children, disappeared on 20 August last year. They were last seen at a checkpoint in Allapiddy, an area tightly controlled by the Navy.
Around 1,000 priests, sisters and lay people attended the three-hour fasting and prayers held this morning in the compound of Jaffna Cathedral. At the end of the service, the Justice and Peace Commission of Jaffna Diocese launched a book about Fr Jimbrown entitled “Missing”. Sources told AsiaNews that the publication detailed events in the lead-up to the priest’s disappearance, in particular the shelling of his parish church of St Philip Neri on 13 August 2006, when Allaipiddy was caught in crossfire between the security forces and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). “Fr Jimbrown took the wounded out of the area, to safety. The Navy stopped him, but he fell to his knees and pleaded for his people,” recalled the sources.
Other services to mark the priest’s memory were held in Colombo and Mannar, where Fr Jimbrown spent two years as assistant parish priest. Here, the bishop himself, Mgr Rayappu Joseph, presided over Mass at St Sebastian’s Cathedral.
For the Church of Sri Lanka, particularly in Jaffna, Fr Jimbrown is a “symbol” of human rights violations that are perpetrated daily: “People are kidnapped or killed every day here. Our prayers today were for all of them.” Only a week ago, on 13 August, six men were shot dead by ‘unknown persons’ in Jaffna, and another three went missing. “People are living in utter fear and everyone is afraid to speak out,” continued the sources. “Only the Church can do something to highlight what is happening.”
The de facto return to civil war in Sri Lanka has led to an alarming rise in abductions and ‘disappearances’ – often a euphemism for extrajudicial execution – committed by all the warring parties. The security forces and paramilitaries complicit with them are held to be implicated in the majority of recent cases. In Jaffna alone, more than 560 people who went missing between December 2005 and April 2007 remain unaccounted for.
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21/04/2009
