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by the Addalaichenai special correspondent, P. T. Iqbal

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is the only leader who was capable of ensuring peace and harmony within a short period of 15 months. Due to the prevailing fear-free situation in the country, the Ministers are able to visit the people particularly in the Ampara district and sort out their problems at their doorsteps, Minister of Interior, John Amaratunga, said yesterday.

He was speaking at Addalaichenai National College of Education Auditorium where a UNP rally was held. The rally was held under the patronage of the former Member of Parliament, SSP, M. A. Abdul Majeed and Defence, Transport, Tourism & Aviation Minister Tilak Marapan.

Minister of Lands Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs A. H. M. Azwer, Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Mahinda Wijesekera, Minister of Health and Nutrition P. Dayaratne, Minister of Mass Communication Imthiyas Bakeer Markar, Minister of Hindu Religious Affairs T. Maheswaran, Minister of Water Resource Management, Laksman Senewiratne, Member of Parliament M. M. Musthafa, UNP General Secretary, Senarath Kapukotuwa, and the Chairman of UNP, Malik Samarawickrama were also present.

Minister Amaratunga further said "This is my first visit to this area. In the past we were unable to visit this area because of terrorist activities and now the country and the people are free, due to the MoU between the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The motive of our leader and the UNF Government is to make the people live together with peace and harmony and find solutions for their problems by ministers visiting their doorsteps. As such a group of Cabinet Ministers including myself were sent here. Now, we have identified a number of shortcomings in this area. We hope that by conducting a mobile services, proper solutions could be found for these shortcomings.

The Police Service was brought under a separate service under my supervision and the police need not bow down to anybody or any politician. I have got some complains about policemen in this area that they have been acting with the influence of some politicians. If that is proved, they would be brought to book".

Minister of Health and Nutrition P. Dayaratne said that the three communities are living together in Ampara district despite terrorist activities in the past, and this trend should continue in the future too.

After the UNF government came into power, the people can go to every nook and corner of our country. During the past 15 months, we were unable to accelerate development activities due to ongoing peace talks.

Our Leader and the Ministers are determined to launch development activities after the sixth round of peace talks and the people of this region should support their implementation.

Mahinda Wijesekera, Minister of Fisheries said that the fisheries sector would be developed with ultra modern facilities. The objective of this scheme is to enhance the standard of living of the fishing communities and bring more revenue to the country. There are 15,000 fishing families in Ampara district, they have no adequate facilities for fishing. Their problems should be sorted out immediately.

To this program people of this region should extend their support for the politicians like Minister P. Dayaratne and Abdul Majeed. The Ampara district has adequate resources of fisheries and it should be developed, he said.

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