The National Peace Council has awarded its Citizens Peace Award for 2014 to Reverend Father Benjamin Henry Miller for his long years of service to the war affected people of Sri Lanka, especially during the period of war. Since 1948, when Fr Miller, known as Harry, arrived at the Jesuit Mission in Batticaloa from the United States, he has spent 66 years in Sri Lanka during which he served as an educator, priest, protector and witness.
In his early years in Sri Lanka, Father Miller taught physics, English and history, and coached the soccer team at St. Michael’s College, a boys’ school. Later when violence and war broke out, Fr Miller was one of the founders of the Batticaloa Peace Committee and the Batticaloa Council of Religions as lasting initiatives to find a peaceful solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
The National Peace Council honors the work of Fr Miller with the Batticaloa Peace Committee which began as a group of concerned citizens and gave advice on legal procedures surrounding detention and how to find those in detention. They took up these cases with the authorities, publicized the cases where it might help, and shared the information with national and international human rights organisations, diplomats, journalists and NGOs. In recognition of their non-partisan role, and their positive role in the reconciliation process, the security forces gave the Batticaloa Peace Committee the role of conduit to hand-over released prisoners.
As a founder member of the Batticaloa Peace Committee Fr Miller showed himself to be a fearless human rights activist who encouraged and strengthened civil society in Batticaloa to take up the cause of the victims of human rights abuses committed by all parties, the security forces, LTTE and the several other militant groups. In recognition of his non-partisan work, during the period of Ceasefire in 2002 and until its breakdown, the Government of Sri Lanka appointed him to be its nominee for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission for Batticaloa.
The Citizens Peace Award was established in 2010 by the National Peace Council to honour those Sri Lankan individuals in civil society who are resident in Sri Lanka and have stood up for the protection of and enforcement of human rights and fundamental rights when such rights are under threat and such action requires unusual courage and self sacrifice to do so. During this period when there is much controversy about the interventionist role of the international community in post-war Sri Lanka, we believe that Fr Miller’s work exemplifies the universality of human rights and the duty to protect the rights of all in the national process of reconciliation and a mutually acceptable political solution.
The selection of the winner is by the Board of Directors of the NPC and is ratified by its Governing Council. The prize is made possible by funds received from the Sakai City Government’s Peace Contribution Award and the National Peace Council.