COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Pope Francis arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday at the start of a weeklong Asian tour, saying the island nation can’t fully heal from a quarter-century of ethnic civil war without pursuing the truth about the injustices that were committed.
While Francis didn’t specifically mention Sri Lanka’s refusal to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the final months of the war, he said that finding reconciliation after so much bloodshed, “can only be done by overcoming evil with good, and by cultivating those virtues which foster reconciliation, solidarity and peace.”
A 2011 U.N. report said as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in the final government assault that ended the war in 2009, and that both sides committed serious human rights violations.
“The process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and unity,” he said.
Francis, 78, spoke on the tarmac of Colombo’s international airport, where he was welcomed under sunny skies by Sri Lanka’s new president, Maithripala Sirisena, who was sworn in Friday after a big electoral upset. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and other church leaders were on hand as well.