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Defy 100-meter ban, Ranil tells tsunami victims
By Premasiri Weerasinghe
Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday urged coastal residents to defy the Government’s 100-metre ban, calling it illegal and stating that it was rife with fundamental rights issues.

Mr. Wickremesinghe, addressing a gathering of displaced persons in Hambantota yesterday told them not to budge from their battered residences which were within the government’s 100-metre no-construction zone along the shore.

"If anyone asks you to move, ask them to produce a court order," he said. Mr. Wickremesinghe advised the residents to file a police complaint for harassment, if those who asked them to leave did not produce a court order.

"If displaced people are pulled out of their homes and land in the way the government proposed, it might invite UN intervention," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. He asked whether the Government was ready to pay damages if the displaced people filed fundamental rights cases.

The Opposition Leader also charged there were irregularities in the tsunami-aid distribution, saying the Government was storing away money in various bank accounts and funds, including the President's fund.

He urged the Government to release the money to the victims and warned that donors would divert their funding elsewhere if the aid was mismanaged.

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