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EFL protests on violation of fishermen's rights

by Florence Wickramage

The Environmental Foundation Limited (EFL) has strongly protested against the blatant use of firepower by State Law Enforcement Agencies and the violation of human rights during a protest by fishermen at Uswetekeiyawa recently which was aimed at safeguarding their own livelihood and property.

The Chairman EFL Ravi Algama has in a letter urged the Netherlands Government to request an investigation into this matter and to take necessary steps and remedial action.

In the incident three persons were killed and two others seriously injured among ten people hospitalised on Nov. 20th, 2001 in Uswetekeiyawa during a public protest against off-shore sand dredging for the construction of the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway (CKE) project. The public protest was suppressed by police opening gunfire.

The EFL says that the trace outline of the original design has considerably been altered due to public protests in 1994, where the original design of CKE cut across the Muthurajawela marsh which is the largest wetland close to Colombo. The road is 32 kilometres long and partly crosses the Negombo lagoon, which sparked off the protest. The foundation of the road needs 47 million cubic metres of sand.

It had been identified that over 200 people could be affected on a normal fishing day and NARA had strongly suggested that they be compensated. The project is handled by Boskalis a Netherlands based company and funded by ORET funds from the Netherlands Government.

Ravi Algama says that it is a shame that the affected fishermen were not duly compensated due to the negative impact on their livelihood and that their just protests had ended in several fishermen being killed.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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