Sri Lanka It's Happening

July 5, 2005

While shamelessly holding hands with the ruling party in the Western Provincial Council, the main opposition UNP has started a massive protest campaign in the southern province. And what a massive campaign it is! Almost everyone who has been effected by the tsunami seems to be there.

The UNP is attacking on the most obvious weakpoint of the government; it's total failure to provide relief to those effected by the tsunami. (That's being generous all indications are the funds have been siphoned off). Not only has the government failed to help these people but the government has actually prevented people from helping themselves.

How? Well there is an extremely stupid buffer zone (which even the president's own brother has spoken out against) which prevents people from rebuilding with in 100M from the high tide mark. What's truely rediculous is that the coastline changed with the tsunami and all the maps are now obsolete the 100M zone has to be freshly surveyed and six months after the tsunami it has not been done. That is no suprise this is Sri Lanka.

The UNP has predictably stated that they will abolish the buffer zone with in 24 hours from coming into power. Welcome news for people who want to move back to their old homes.

The UNP has also promised to provide relief to all those effected with in three months. They hope to come to power in November, that means by february everyone would be back in their old houses or new ones. One thing for sure that will not happen in their lifetimes if the present government continues in power. Unfortunately indications are that they will.

The president and the government have emphatically stated that they do not want to abide by the constution and have elections in november 2005. The dictator who calls herselfs a democratically elected president wants to stay on for an extra year.

Posted by raditha at July 5, 2005 5:17 AM