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SRI LANKA
Assassination brings war closer to capitalBishops decry terrorist tactics
A senior Sri Lankan government minister, C. V. Gooneratne, was killed on June 7 by a suspected rebel suicide bomber while the minister, the mayor of the municipality of Mt. Lavania, and others were on a fundraising campaign seeking support for the soldiers who were affected by the war. Gooneratne was a staunch Catholic and was the top government minister in attendance during the visit of Pope John Paul II to Sri Lanka in 1995.
June 7—the day of the assassination—had been declared as War Heroes day, with two minutes of silence observed in remembrance of the soldiers who had died in the country’s long and bloody civil war. “It is ironic that on a day like this a suicide bomber should target Gooneratne,” said a government supporter—who declined to be identified, citing his fears of terrorist retaliation. Archbishop Nicholas Marcus Fernando of Colombo condemned the assassination, saying: “The senseless act of violence which claimed the lives of 22 others and wounded over 60 people shows the total disregard for life and human rights on the part of the terrorists.”