Lanka invokes tough anti-terror laws

Sri Lanka's main opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe (C) waves to crowds from the roof of a car as he directs a protest march into Colombo yesterday. Thousands of opposition supporters marched on the Sri Lankan capital, ending a 10-day procession aimed at pressuring President Chandrika Kumaratunga to call early national elections. PHOTO: AFP

The final 10-kilometre (six-mile) leg of the march began in a Colombo suburb and was expected to end in the late afternoon at the main Lipton Circus area for a public meeting to be addressed by opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are joining the rally," said opposition United National Party (UNP) deputy leader Karu Jayasu-riya. "This, we believe, is the largest crowd ever seen in Colombo.

"We don't know the exact numbers, but it could be hundreds of thousands."

Traffic police unofficially estimated the crowd at around 100,000.

The march began 10 days ago, with UNP leader and former premier Wickremesinghe and supporters setting off from the southern tip of Sri Lanka, 170km from Colombo, a city of about 600,000 people.

Several roads in the capital were closed to traffic as the procession wound through the suburbs. Police stepped up security with the deployment of 3,000 constables, said Colombo police chief Pujith Jayasundara.

President Chandrika Kumarat-unga declared her official residence and the immediate neighbourhood a "high security zone" and banned processions or heavy vehicles from entering the area.

Officials said Kumaratunga, in her role as defence minister, had issued an "extraordinary" gazette notification dated Friday in which she invoked the provisions of the tough Prevention of Terrorism Act to declare the ban.

The restriction also applies to three luxury hotels, including the Colombo Hilton and the World Trade Centre building, with owners compelled to declare details of all occupants to security authorities.

Meanwhile, at least eight policemen and a soldier were wounded in suspected Tamil rebel attacks in strike-bound northeastern Sri Lanka yesterday, a day after the guerrillas warned of a return to war.

In a separate statement, the Tigers on Monday evening warned that Sri Lanka could slip back into war and accused the government of provoking them to break a fragile Norwegian-brokered truce.

"We say this because we have repeatedly raised this issue in the past, and in spite of this the government is murdering our people and is carrying out a shadow war against us," LTTE's political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said in a letter to truce monitors.