I am happy that the President of the Republic of China will be on official visit in Mauritius next week but I am amazed by the traffic arrangements decided by the Mauritian police:
- Entire roads becoming no parking zones including the whole of St Jean Road in Quatre-Bornes!
- Traffic diversions everywhere including for those poor souls living in Black-River who won’t be allowed to circulate on Palma road!
- Closure of roads at specific times including the M1 motorway!
- etc.
I am 100% in favour of having special arrangements when a President visits the country. For instance, I agree about removing the speed breakers along the Palma road towards Flic-en-Flac as a Presidental delegation needs to travel at constant speed for security reasons.
What I find ridiculous though is penalising hundred of thousands of Mauritius on their way to work and back home. Helicopters should have been used (at least for the President himself — his “servants” would then have followed in a less penalising fashion.)
I predict massive traffic jams on Monday and Tuesday. Stay at home if possible. Leave your car at home at least. Damn!
carrotmadman6 says
The no parking zones are required so that no booby-trapped cars are set – well if someone really wanted to bomb him, they’d have found another way. :P
Shutting down roads & traffic diversions highlights a massive weakness of Mauritius (bcoz of its size) – lack of roads & other means of transportation (tramway?).
The best thing in this context would have been to close only one part of the motorway, while converting the other one into two-way? It shouldn’t be that hard?
I guess that the helicopter option was not chosen because of its increased vulnerability – since we do not have armored helicopters, China would have been required to bring their helicopters & their escorts & air control. They would have been required to move the logistics in each country he visited… :)
avinash says
True.
At least the Government is acknowledging that this will cause massive disruption: civil servants and students will get home early on Monday and Tuesday. I guess anyone sensible should really abstain from travelling on these days especially towards or from Port-Louis… except to come to Knowledge Seven Ltd for our first Linux training of course :-)
Yashvin says
At least, they did admit (indirectly) that their security measures would surely cause much inconvenience, and perhaps not 100% good idea after all.
Since the last days, I have noticed that the government has stepped down on a few occasions, for instance xtra 30 mins for colleges, and today, the xtravagenza security measures.
Are these some signs that they are trying to make the population happier? *cough* *cough*
Helicopters, blocking only some parts of the motorway : they are all good alternatives.
Nevertheless, it seems that SECURITY was(?) the only main concern, leaving behind the thousands of Mauritians, strangers in their own country.
Anyway, feel free to read my post about those special traffic arrangements even if I wrote it a much different way…
sleepoholic says
damn exploding cars! wont work!!! i’ve tried poisoning but he’s got melanine immunity….guess i have to look for another way…..
sleepoholic says
do you no any akamai cached site where i can download game demos???
avinash says
I hope you are joking only :-)
avinash says
I guess you could go to Akamai’s website to get its list of customers. Maybe you’ll find 1-2 game vendors in this list.
T R says
Apparently many chief of states literally beg him to come for an official visit in their countries….so its quite an honour to be able to receive him for these 2 days… i know the traffic arrangements are absurd or even ridiculous but we have to bear with it….
selven says
We must accept the fact that here, we don’t have proper roads large enough to provide the security of a president in a country in like ours. Had the roads not been closed, it would be too easy for someone to drive a bmw and someone else at the rear seat start shooting everybody and even if the car were to be bullet proof, the confusion caused by dead bikers, the cars will hit an accident and will be vulnerable for a huge lorry coming in that direction to specifically [supposed according to a plan] to tear down everything infront. So it was necessary.
Wny not helicopters then… in those air Mauritius helicopters???? Those things are slow and has no way of protecting themselves in case of someone starting to shoot some rockets at them. Neither are they bullet proofs, neither can we easily have decoys. Neither are their movement largely flexible. :p Those helicopters can’t be like the helicopters used for airforce one :p hahahaha
Specially if his life is in danger, these are necessary protections, else the ones who came in to make security arrangements will not agree for the president to have a visits had we not met the minimum security requirements.
I hope he brings lots of sexy chinese hostess with him :p at least that’ll make the event on MBC a bit nicer to see compared to the usual Navin live show.
Vishal says
i understand the inconveniences that those arrangement may have caused … Yes, of course, there is always an alternative way.. but am sure some would give their ‘precious comments on that too’.. lol!
Anyways, this freedom of expression i think …Personally, I am happy that the president visited our tiny Island and for the litle good that this visit can do to us in this difficult moments. Here, am not talking just about the business because ‘may’ be they have some stakes too… am talking about making our Island a litle more visible in the world chart! And its worth the two days of inconcenience i think …
Now this is my point of view… of course!! :-)
avinash says
I have to agree.
It was great having the President of one of the superpowers here in Mauritius. To be frank, I was proud of how “professional” the security measures looked from my point of view (which is that of a layman…)