Bangalore, India, 21 March (ENI)--Church officials in Sri Lanka are warning of a refugee crisis on the Indian Ocean island as a result of continuing hostilities between government forces and rebels seeking autonomy for Tamil-majority areas of the country. More than 150 000 people, who have fled from areas held by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have been "without sufficient food, drinking water and other basic facilities for the last four or five days," said an appeal issued by Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Kingsley Swampillai of Trincomalee-Batticaloa in northeast Sri Lanka.

In his 19 March appeal, the bishop urged the international community and humanitarian organizations to "step in immediately to help the destitute people". The United Nations said last week that thousands of Tamil civilians had fled from the rebel-held areas following shelling by government forces. The World Food Programme (WFP) warned on 20 March that it would run out of food supplies for those affected by the fighting unless it received new funding.

"After all the suffering endured by the victims of the fighting, they should not be hurt further by a lack of international support and concern," the WFP stated. "This shows the gravity of the situation," Santha Fernando, executive secretary of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka told Ecumenical News International.

In a letter of concern to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, the church council, which groups eight Protestant churches, also warned that the use of a new type of rocket launcher by government forces was causing "inconceivable hardships" to civilians. "This type will only contribute towards further aggravating the ethnic conflict," the church council told the president. Increasing violence in recent months between security forces and Tamil rebels has led to the almost complete collapse of a 2002 cease-fire brokered by Norway. [320 words]

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Tokyo, 20 March (ENI)--The leader of a Japanese Christian group that concerns itself with nuclear disasters has protested against a nuclear power plant accident in central Japan that was covered up for years. "This is an injustice that cannot be tolerated. We strongly protest [against the accident cover-up]," said Yoshiko Bannai, chairperson of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Issue Project of the National Christian Council in Japan.

The protest was expressed in a 16 March letter addressed to Isao Nagahara, president of the Hokuriku Electric Power Company, and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the government's ministry of economy, trade and industry. It was reported on 15 March that a nuclear power plant in Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, had caused an inadvertent nuclear chain reaction in 1999 after three control rods slipped out of position. The report added that the company covered up the incident for more than seven years before reporting it to the government. The company said it was a minor accident.

Since 1990, Bannai's group has organized visits to victims of the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, in response to calls for medical and other support by the World Council of Churches and the Russian Orthodox Church. She pointed out that the 1999 Japanese accident was similar to the one in Chernobyl, and could have led to a major disaster.

"Such a cover up could lead to the deprivation of the lives of not only human beings but also of all creatures," she added. "Please tackle the prevention of the recurrence of nuclear accidents," said Bannai, whose denomination is called the Non-Church Group. "We request that there be full access to information."

The nuclear power company president offered a "sincere apology" for losing the trust of local residents, and said he was determined to investigate thoroughly the causes of the accident. [320 words]

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Bangalore, India, 13 March (ENI)--The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka is pleading for international support after four members of the church grouping, including a pastor and his two sons, went missing in early March. "We are appealing to international agencies to put pressure on the government to reveal the whereabouts of these missing church members," Godfrey Yogarajah, general secretary of the Evangelical alliance told Ecumenical News International from Colombo.

In a statement, the alliance said that 51-year-old pastor Victor Emmanuel Yogarajan, along with his two sons Daniel and David, and another young Christian, Joseph Sugandakumar, had been missing from a Colombo suburb since early on 2 March. The pastor, who heads the Gospel Missionary Church in Vavuniya in the north of the island, was in the Sri Lankan capital with the young people, to make travel arrangements for them to go abroad. The four went missing after they ventured out of their Negombo residence.

"We have checked with various police and other departments but they are denying they have arrested these missing people," said Yogarajah. "The fact that even pastors are being targeted shows the worsening situation." Evangelical pastor Vincent Vinodharaja, who leads the Christian Church of the Apostle in Jaffna, went missing on 11 August 2006, followed, 10 days later, by a Roman Catholic priest, Thiruchelvam Nihal Jim Brown of Jaffna and his lay helper.

In January, Nallathamby Gnanaseelan, of the Tamil Mission Church in Jaffna was shot dead on a road, by Sri Lankan security personnel, in the country's troubled Tamil heartland. The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission has said that a disappearance occurs in Sri Lanka every five hours. The Civil Monitoring Committee on Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances has registered nearly 100 complaints of disappearances in the Sri Lankan capital in recent months, while hundreds of disappearances have been reported across the island.

Victor Perera, Inspector General of the Sri Lankan police, admitted on 6 March that a large number of abductions have been carried out illegally by police officers and troops. The admission came after five bullet-ridden bodies of unidentified men were found in the north central district of Anuradhapura on the same day. [375 words]

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Tokyo, 8 March (ENI)--Leaders from the Christian Conference of Asia have concluded five days of celebrations in Indonesia for their 50th year as a grouping with one leader calling for stepped-up efforts by churches to fight corruption and nepotism in the region. "The celebrations were not just about the past; they were also a time to look to the future and to identify new opportunities to equip the churches to venture into ministries unique and decisive in the Asian context," Prawate Khid-arn, general secretary of the conference, told Ecumenical News International in a telephone interview from Indonesia.

The Rev. Soritua Nababan of the Protestant Christian Batak Church in Indonesia, who is a president of the World Council of Churches, at one gathering called on Asian churches to help fight corruption, collusion and nepotism in the region, Indonesia's Antara News service reported. The church conference celebrations featured worship services, panel discussions, story telling sessions and tree planting, with the commemoration taking place in the CCA's founding birthplace in the northwestern Indonesian city of Parapat, on the island of Sumatra.

The Rev. Ron O'Grady, a former CCA associate general secretary from New Zealand, introduced previous leaders and friends who reminisced about their involvement with the CCA, which was founded as the East Asia Christian Conference. Two people who were at the original meeting in Parapat in 1957 were present at the March 2007 meeting, including Nabadan and U Kyaw Than, a former general secretary of the conference from Burma.

A spiritual revival service was held with the involvement of local churches in Pematang Siantar, the second-largest city in North Sumatra, where a large gathering took place in 1957 in the presence of the independent Indonesia's first leader, President Sukarno. [299 words]

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New Delhi, 7 March (ENI)--Defying some perceptions of widening divisions between Christians and followers of Islam, hundreds of Muslims have joined a sit-in in the Indian capital organized by Christian groups fighting discrimination meted out to Dalits, considered by many in the country still to be "untouchable" citizens. "Give us equal rights," shouted the protesters including senior church leaders and Muslim activists at the 3 March sit-in demanding and end to the discrimination against Christian and Muslim Dalits.

The meeting was organized by the ecumenical National United Christian Forum for Human Rights with the National Council of Churches in India, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India and the Evangelical Fellowship of India. "Our governments have been deaf and blind to our cries. Let pray to God that they get sight and hearing to see our suffering," said Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi, chairperson of the ecumenical forum, as Muslim women with their faces covered with veils listen to him along with veiled Catholic nuns.

On 1 March, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination sharply criticised the Indian government for its failure to prevent discrimination based on caste. In a report, it deplored widespread abuse perpetrated against Dalits. It found that more than 165 million Dalits continue to face segregation in housing, schools, and access to public services in the world's second most populous nation. Christian groups have long campaigned for equal rights for Christian Dalits - who account for two thirds of India's 26 million Christians - for more than 50 years since the government introduced law aimed at affirmative action for Hindu Dalits in 1950 and face extra discrimination.

'Dalit' (meaning "trampled upon" in Sanskrit) refers to low castes treated as untouchables under the ongoing caste system in India which leaves them consigned to degrading and dehumanising and menial jobs as well as scavenging. With the Scheduled Caste [official name for Dalits] Act of 1950, Hindu Dalits became entitled to free education and with certain government jobs reserved for them to improve their social status. Later, these benefits were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and Buddhist Dalits in 1990.

"What secularism is there in this country? Are we not citizens of this country?" challenged Kamal Ashraf, coordinator of the Dalit Muslim Liberation Movement, as he led hundreds of his followers in protest at the meeting organized by the Christian groups. "Caste is a social reality and a Dalit is a Dalit whether he is a Christian or a Muslim." Ashraf told Ecumenical News International that "bother of us [Christians and Muslims] are in the same boat. We have to stand together and fight for justice." The groups that oppose extension of equal rights to Christian and Muslim Dalits, he asserted, are part of a Hindu fundamentalist lobby that treats Christianity and Islam as "foreign religions". [488 words] -------------------- 'Jesus tomb' documentary denounced by Christians, archaeologists Jerusalem (ENI). In the quiet Jerusalem suburb of East Talpiot, a tomb claimed by a US documentary team to be the last resting place of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, has become the centre of a worldwide controversy. The Discovery Channel will on 4 March screen "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". It will claim the 2000-year-old tomb could hold the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, said to be his partner and Judah said to be their son, along with other members of his family. [396 words, ENI-07-0173] 'Jesus tomb' documentary denounced by Christians, archaeologists ENI-07-0173 By Annette Young Jerusalem, 1 March (ENI)--In the quiet Jerusalem suburb of East Talpiot, a tomb claimed by a US documentary team to be the last resting place of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, has become the centre of a worldwide controversy. The Discovery Channel will on 4 March screen "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". It will claim the 2000-year-old tomb could hold the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, said to be his partner and Judah said to be their son, along with other members of his family. Produced by Hollywood film maker, James Cameron, the film makers say forensic tests support the view that six of the 10 ossuaries found in the tomb - now held by the Israel Antiquities Authority - bear inscriptions that link them to "Jesus, son of Joseph". The film's co-producer, Simcha Jacobovici, has called for further archaeological work on the site so that additional forensic and DNA testing can be carried out on the remains. But archaeologists and theologians have criticised the film's claims as unfounded. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem interviewed in the documentary, told the Associated Press the film's hypothesis holds little weight. "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," he said. "But sceptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear." Archaeologists said the burial cave was probably that of a Jewish family with similar names to that of Jesus, a common name at the time. Professor Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who initially excavated the site in 1980, decried the documentary's claims to the Jerusalem Post newspaper as "brain confusion" which mixed fact with fiction and "dressed up facts" in a Hollywood-like manner. The burial site is about five kilometres (three miles) away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City where many Christians believe Jesus' body lay for three days. The Israel Antiquities Authority is responsible for the site, although it is located on private land. It said it would be willing to re-open the tomb but only if it got the go-ahead from the Jerusalem municipality. But Gidi Schmerling, a spokesman for the municipality, told Ecumenical News International that no request has yet been made. [396 words]

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