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Beware of UDA intentions

by L. Jayasooriya

A meeting on the Galle Face Green was convened by Mr. Alavi Maulana, governor of the Western Province on January 6th at 3 PM in his office to which he kindly invited me to air my views.

I thank Mr. Maulana for the opportunity given to me. Two members of parliament from two political parties were also present in addition to the UDA delegation and a few others.

Judging from the heat that was generated by the UDA delegation and how touchy they became whenever a question was asked and the answers they gave generated many unanswered questions.

Based on what transpired it is my personal feeling that what the UDA is now trying to do under the pretext of handing over the maintenance of the Galle Face Green to a private party is to enable this private party to make vast sums of money by commercializing the Green and thus destroying the relaxing atmosphere that was intended to be at this famous spot.

Instead of contracting out the maintenance of the Galle Face Green for a fee under UDA supervision, the plan of the UDA is to receive from the contactor around 12,000 rupees a day for the privilege of making money there by selling food and providing entertainment.

At the meeting the UDA specifically stated that there will be a giant screen for cultural events and loud speakers to enable parents to locate lost children.

When I subsequently rang up one of the members of the delegation to clarify the question of the giant screen and loud speakers he got visibly angry and told me that a giant screen can be erected for an occasion and that a public address system is already in existence. This is not consistent with what was said at the meeting by the leader of the delegation.

Once the giant screen is erected with the loud speakers, the screen will undoubtedly be used to attract the crowds and even though the screen will be in an allocated area it will disturb the peace and tranquillity of the entire area because of the loud speakers that are installed everywhere.

At night if cricket is on, there will be vast crowds and they all will be potential consumers of the food they provide.

Whether cricket or not there is enough rubbish on television that can be projected on this screen that will attract the lowest common mental denominator.

On top of that they could show their own videos and who decides what should be shown to the public and what should not be?

How about the money that could be earned through advertising? All these are a forced and an unwanted intrusion into the right and liberty of a citizen to relax on the Green and will destroy the intent and purpose for which the Galle face Green was first created, namely as a place for relaxation.

If clean food is served under hygienic conditions as in a quality restaurant at the price that has to be charged to provide such a service then only a minority of the crowd will use it but if the standards are kept at the present filthy level then the vast bulk of the crowd will be paying the winner of the tender several times the 12,000 rupees per day that he has to pay the UDA.

About six years ago I have seen people eating chicken curry there and washing their soiled fingers on to the ground and rinsing their mouths and spitting there itself.

In the morning one could see several hundreds of crows cleaning up the mess. That place was stinking six years ago. The stink must be worse now. Those are the standards of the UDA.

If the giant screen and the loud speakers are not permitted the food stalls will not make the kind of money they were estimating and the entire project will collapse and we could have peace.

So therein lies the key. No giant screen and no loud speakers. The next step will be to rid the place of food vendors and regain the Green as it was meant to be.

If the UDA is allowed to have its own way this Galle Face Green will eventually turn out to be a cheap carnival and a repulsive place to visit if the giant screen and those loud speakers are permitted.

Also nothing will prevent the Evangalists from using the facilities to cause annoyance to Buddhists and Hindus because they have the means to pay as much as is demanded. Under no circumstances should we permit the giant screen and the loud speakers and we should go to courts to prevent it taking place.

Has the UDA carried out an environmental impact study on the people who use this Green if their plan for a giant screen and loud speakers connecting the entire Green is implemented? This does not need specialists in various branches to make that study. It is obvious to any person who wants to use the Green for relaxation.

The original Green had no provision for food anywhere and no space was allocated for it because people do not come to a park to eat. They come to relax.

An inconspicuous ice cream vendor or a peanut seller would not disturb the environment but not the repulsive circular structures painted with equally repulsive advertisements that have been erected along the promenade. These obviously reflect on the UDA idea of how the environment is maintained.

People have the right to demand and require that the UDA gets all those advertisements erased and take the UDA to court if they fail to do so. They should also demand the return to the Green the space that was taken away to provide food stalls.

I have stated in an earlier letter that if all the citizens of Greater London were evacuated to available parks then not more than one person will be allocated to a perch of land.

Will the UDA have the courage to give us the corresponding number that will be packed into one perch of land in Greater Colombo? They will never tell us that figure.

Knowing very well that the available space for recreation in Greater Colombo is so far below the basic absolute minimum they have now embarked to deprive the public the very little they have by removing the relaxing atmosphere of the Galle Face Green.

The UDA does not own the Galle Face Green that has been in use by the public ever since the Green was created. All land belongs to the people but held in trust by the executive branch of the government.

That being the case there is nothing that the UDA could do there without the consent of the people obtained in a meaningful manner. Further what the UDA is proposing destroys the environment for recreation.

So my fellow citizens you who own the Galle Face Green have the power to order the UDA to do what you want through the Courts namely to get a court order not to erect a giant screen and use loud speakers to provide the sound.

There are terms and conditions under which the UDA has permitted the winner of the tender to provide the services described. The two members of parliament present at the meeting asked for it.

The public has the right to receive on demand a copy of that agreement by post so that it could be properly studied. The public should in the meantime phone the UDA and ask them to post a copy of the agreement. Please do that and see the response.

The public cannot waste their time going there to read the document. They have the right to demand it to be sent to them by post so that the fine print and especially what has been omitted could be studied. If there is any difficulty then please write to the papers in the first instance before the next step is taken.

Dying palm trees

Let me now come to a different aspect of the Green. Those dying palm trees at Galle Face Green are alien to the western coast and are totally out of place to the surrounding environment as any one could see. The UDA should have consulted the forest department for a suitable tree.

Lastly to sum up, the key to the protection of Galle Face Green is to go to Court to forbid the erection and use of the giant screen and loud speakers anywhere and to remove the food outlets from the Green to regain the original Green as it was designed to be.

Nowhere in the world are there food outlets in a public park except an occasional ice cream outlet. Hyde Park in London, which has the highest concentration of visitors, has only a couple of ice cream stalls and there is none elsewhere in the 42,800 acres of park space in Greater London.

Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen is an entertainment complex with trees and park benches and high-class quality restaurants in a garden atmosphere with live orchestras playing soft classical music. It is not called a park and nobody goes there for relaxation.

They go there for food and entertainment. What we have in the Galle Face Green is a place for relaxation that we must not permit the UDA to destroy for whatever intentions they have.

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