That's an excellent question. The member has touched on a central point. Religion, in this case, seems to be closely related to identity. The religious wars of Europe are not an example for the religious wars of Sri Lanka. I would put it that way. The identity of the individual populations seems to be caught up with their religion, but it's as much culture as it is religion. Keep in mind, there's a significant Muslim minority to complicate things, that speaks Tamil. So when you're counting who's a Tamil in the country, it gets a little more complicated.
The Catholic Church has been there a very long time, and it has members and devotees on both sides of this communal divide. When I was in Jaffna, I was successful in gaining an interview with the archbishop. He was known to have access to the thinking of the Tigers, and he of course was a Tamil himself. We met in his cloister, and we went on for quite some time before I reminded him that I was waiting to hear from a Catholic archbishop and not a Tamil spokesman. That is, I asked him if his religion could crosscut the conflict, and it was clear it could not. So I think even though there are Catholics on both sides, ethnicity and culture seem to be the bigger divide.