Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga told a select London audience that her country was riven with division and hatred and took a swipe at “an inept political class” for making this worse. Ms. Kumaratunga was in London last week to receive the 2019 award for her “vision, courage and commitment to peace and reconciliation” presented [...]

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CBK laments division and hatred in Sri Lanka

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Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga told a select London audience that her country was riven with division and hatred and took a swipe at “an inept political class” for making this worse.

Ms. Kumaratunga was in London last week to receive the 2019 award for her “vision, courage and commitment to peace and reconciliation” presented by an international organisation called Search for Common Ground.

Recalling her personal tragedies–the assassination of her father, husband and the attempt on her own life– she told the invited audience at the House of Lord: “I realised through all the pain and tribulations, that violence only begets violence and it could be quelled only through understanding and love, in the words of the Buddha as well as other religious prophets.”

Referring to terrorism as the “most terrifying and destructive phenomenon of our age”, the former president recalled the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka two months ago when innocent people at prayer on Christianity’s holiest day were killed along with tourists in their hotels.

She urged nations “to strive to build inclusive and shared societies where all communities, living within a nation, must be included as equal partners, enjoying equal rights in the economic, political and socio-cultural spheres”.

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