Catholic aid director outlines struggles in fragile region of Asia - World - Sean Callahan of Catholic Relief Services - Interview

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 30, 2004 by Arthur Jones

Though Catholics are a tiny minority in South Asia, the church plays a disproportionately important role within the region, from providing health and social services to helping broker peace in countries as different as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

For example, said Sean Callahan, New Delhi-based regional director for Catholic Relief Services, in Sri Lanka where there has been a 20-year war that has pitted the predominantly Hindu insurgent Tamil Tigers against the primarily Buddhist Sri Lanka Singhalese population, Catholics are only 8 percent of the population.

But because half the Catholics are Tamils, and half are Singhalese, "the church is a player and has been able to develop a national peace plan," brokering meetings between the two sides.

In India, by contrast, Catholics, though only 18 million strong in a country of 1.2 billion, operate the second largest social services system after the Indian government.

Callahan, speaking at St. Mel's parish, Woodland Hills, Calif., has covered the six countries since 1998. He provided a thumbnail sketch of each nation and its internal fragilities in order to weigh the severity of potential clashes between cultures.

Three of the nations are Islamic (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh), two predominantly Hindu (India and Nepal), and one predominantly Buddhist (Sri Lanka). All are experiencing various degrees of internal violence. "Is religion the cause of it?" asked Callahan, rhetorically "Probably not."

Afghanistan

Callahan said his impression of Afghanistan's population of 26 million is that, despite the nation's devastation and rubble, Afghanis "are a people of hope. They have had 35 years of constant violence and are a lot more optimistic than the foreigners who visit them. They believe the country is going to get better."

There are now 4 million children attending school, including a million girls, previously excluded.

He said CRS is supporting tent schools in 99 villages where accelerated education programs are trying to bring children up to their age/grade level. He has visited classes where there are 8-year-old boys and 38-year-old demobilized soldiers studying third-grade math.

Ex-soldiers told him they are the poorest people in the area and education is the only way to move up. Callahan said Afghanistan's emerging political system remains vulnerable, and the warlords retain a great deal of power.

In a nation with an army of 7,000 to 8,000 soldiers, some warlords have 20,000 militia members under their sway.

"The threat to democracy moving forward is ignorance and poverty," said Callahan, for it "leaves people easily manipulated by extremists."

Pakistan

The speaker said he regards Pakistan as the current key to South Asia's future. Because of close ties between the Pakistani military, its CIA and the Taliban, Pakistan was extremely influential in helping mastermind the Taliban's Afghanistan successes. "Breaking the Taliban nexus with the Pakistani military is proving difficult," Callahan said.

With a population of 140 million, he said, "Pakistan is a partner with the U.S. in the war on terrorism, but supplies North Korea and Iran with nuclear technology. There is tremendous corruption in the country; a moderate [Islamic] population in the cities, but more radical in the border areas, particularly borders with Afghanistan. So there's some fragility there."

India

With the region's second largest Muslim population, some 130 million among the 1.2 billion Indians, and flanked by Pakistan and Bangladesh, India's Hindu's are countering internally with "Hindutwa," a radicalization of their own, explained Callahan. It is a trend "not favorable to minority communities," he said. Both Muslim and Christian communities have suffered from outbreaks of severe violence. Callahan suggested that radicalization was driven more by politics than religion.

"This is a country with tremendous, [economic] potential," he said. "The economy is growing at 8 percent annually," and the nation has emerged as a new economic power in information technology outsourcing, and will soon compete globally with its pharmaceuticals. Callahan said that whatever anyone says about India is "probably true."

"Its two largest power sources are nuclear energy and cow dung. Children are seen as gods and there are 60 to 100 million child laborers. India puts satellites in space, and 300 million live in poverty on less than a dollar a day."

Nepal

Tiny Nepal, wedged between India and China, is a constitutional monarchy with a Maoist insurgency. The Maoists have gained support, Callahan said, primarily because the government has not addressed the needs of the poor in the population of 20 million noted for its poverty.

Such is the poverty, he said, that there is increased trafficking of women and children from Nepal into the sex industry in India, particularly to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) simply in order to survive.

Callahan said that when he has asked Catholics from religious communities who work in Nepal's isolated areas if they face difficulties from the insurgents, they have told him they are fine--because they are working at what the Maoist rebels are proposing.