Sri Lanka must not go through another cycle of violence: National Peace Council

After enduring three decades of civil strife and internal war, and now having to answer to the international community at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Sri Lanka must not go through another cycle of violence which targets Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims, the National Peace Council (NPC) said in statement today.

"We call on the government and state institutions, especially the police, to take immediate deterrent and punitive measures against the miscreants and those giving them political and ideological backing", the NPC announced.

NPC alleged that those who foment violence against the Muslim community are citing unfounded allegations of introducing birth control and other drugs into food packets.

They emphasized that incidents of violence against the Muslim and other minority communities are both political and systemic and that these are often engineered citing fear, distrust and insecurities and the building of enemy images of the victim communities.

"Until the national political leadership takes firm and determined action at this time there is an increasing likelihood of Sri Lanka a new cycle of communal violence that will become uncontrollable. A similar phenomenon was seen, with dreadful consequences, in the early 1980s when communal sentiment was directed against the Tamil which culminated in the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983", the NPC added.