Mannaar Bishop asks Peace zone for Madhu area

Pro LTTE website tamilnet on Sunday reported the Bishop of Mannaar, Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, said that the warring parties should openly declare the Madu Shrine and its environs as Peace Zone in order to bring back Our Lady of Madu statue to the Holy Shrine.
According to the government of Sri Lanka that the act of the Sri Lanka Army [SLA] and the high-handed manner in which the Commander of SLA has "instructed" the Church to bring back 'Our Lady of Madu', displayed the cultural insensitiveness of the military that had a record of desecrating holy places.

Elaborating the Bishop's concerns, the academic who did not wished to be named, added that there were serious environmental concerns. "The SLA has a record of clearing valuable trees in the name of what they label as national security". Mannaar has already witnessed the destruction of hundreds of thousands of palmyrah trees by the SLA. The Church should therefore be firm in its stand that the government of Sri Lanka should declare the Madu Shrine covering 2.5 km radius as a peace zone bereft of armed forces, he opined.
After the miraculous statue of Madhu Matha was removed , in the face of an impending military showdown, the incessant torrential rains that lashed the region for weeks, ceased!
The weather cleared up completely and so did the rain of artillery and mortar shells. For two whole days, the big guns went silent this week. There was the occasional shell fired from the cleared to the uncleared area and that was it.

The rains, of course, have resulted in boggy conditions, making ground operations difficult and the use of armour, impossible. The rains also caused mosquito-bred diseases to spread, hampering manpower on both sides.
The LTTE took possession of the Madhu Shrine area after the miraculous statue was removed to St. Xavier’s Church Thevenpiddy, close to Vellankulam in the Mannar District.

Catholic devotees in Mannar commenced a signature campaign to pressure the LTTE, as well as the government, to allow the safe return of the Madhu Matha statue. The petition was handed over to the Government Agent Mannar, A. Nicholaspillai, to be passed down to Colombo.
Mannar Bishop Rayappu Joseph joined his fellow bishops at the Catholic Bishops Conference held held recently in Kandy . The Bishops Conference, in a press release, appealed to the government and the LTTE to keep Madhu, a place of worship, out of the combat.