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Crawling monsters make highway jam
By Sarath Chinthaka
Traffic congestion on the Negombo Road, especially from Peliyagoda to Kandana, has reached crisis proportions with motorists saying they are often stuck for hours on this stretch.

Police and motorists said that in addition to about 150,000 vehicles using the Negombo Road daily, the main cause for the congestion was linked to the movement of some 60 containers every hour to and from 20 container yards along the road upto Kandana.

Motorists and Police said many of these containers were the old creepy-crawly and when they broke down as they did regularly, all hell would break loose on the highway.

They also pointed out that the turning points to the container yards were narrow and when a container truck wanted to take a turn hundreds of other vehicles were blocked for a long time.

Stuck in the chaotic jam were not only school children and office workers but also those going to the airport and often passengers said they were late for their flights.
In terms of a solution, Wattala police said they were trying to arrange a meeting of the container yard owners to work out some practical steps.

A Traffic Police Officer said they would ask container yard owners to get rid of unroadworthy vehicles while urgent action was necessary to broaden the access roads.

Motorists said one of the biggest jams was at the Hendala junction-Hunupitiya junction area at peak hours when hundreds of vehicles came in from four directions. Police said they were trying to work out a traffic lights scheme to ease the situation. According to the Wattala police, three of the main access points to the main road from Hekitta, Alwis town and Hendala are narrow and have not been properly maintained.

Along the Hendala bridge only one vehicle can pass at a time while the Alwis Town Road has a large number of potholes and is occasionally repaired. Wattala OIC Sena Suraweera told The Sunday Times that they were compelled to use a large number of police officers to ease the traffic jam.

Mr. Suraweera said that Interior Minister John Amaratunga was taking steps to repair the Hekitta bridge and install traffic light systems in Wattala. Kandana Traffic OIC Rohana Munasinghe said that one of the main reasons of the traffic problems was that there were no pavements and insufficient pedestrian crossings.

LTTE begins federal tour
Sixteen LTTE members including five female cadres will leave Colombo today on a two-week tour of Scandinavian countries to study the federal systems there.

The delegation will be joined by five other LTTE members now residing in foreign countries. The delegation arrived in Colombo by road last evening and will fly to Oslo today before going on to Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Spain.

A LTTE spokesman said the team was selected from the political sub-committee on federal systems. This is the first overseas tour by them. Before leaving, the delegation had talks with LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Foreign Ministry on our envoy in Iraq
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry in reference to last week’s article The Sunday Times article states that ambassador M.M. Anamul Farouque, in consultation with Ministry of Foreign Affairs, left Baghdad on 16th March 2003 afternoon, that is one day prior to US ultimatum on Iraq expired.

"All Sri Lankan nationals (23) and the staff of the Embassy with their families left Iraq two months prior to the imminent war. Our Embassy has extended all necessary assistance for their departure from Iraq. Mr. Farouque as he planned with 10 other Ambassadors in Asian Region to leave Baghdad on 16th March had to be delayed in order to ensure repatriation of Sri Lankans from Iraq. Therefore there is no truth that the Ambassador had abandoned the Embassy leaving Sri Lankan nationals in Iraq," the statement said.

Our reporter says: The reference was a quote from PA spokesman Sarath Amunugama who said the Ambassador in Baghdad had run away and our article was quite clear about that. The Foreign Ministry's statement seems to confirm that the Ambassador had in fact left Baghdad on March 16, apparently on a US ultimatum.

UNP launches campaign from Matara
Amidst growing signs that the President might call a snap general election, the UNF government has launched a de-facto election campaign with an intense three-day foray in the southern heartland of Matara.

Scores of ministers, deputy ministers and MPs have been visiting every part of the seven electorates of the district during the past two days and the campaign will reach a climax with a massive rally to be addressed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today at the Sanath Jayasuriya Stadium in Matara.

Chief organiser Mahinda Wijesekara said the main aim of the campaign was to prepare the people for any snap poll by giving them a proper awareness of the peace process and the UNF's economic policy. The ministers and others were also looking into various grievances or problems of the people, especially youth problems such as unemployment, and trying to sort them out.

The UNP campaign is seen as a counter offensive to the ongoing SLFP-JVP talks and plans by those two parties to work out an electoral alliance for a snap poll. Similar campaigns will be held in other districts over the next few months.

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