ISLAND ANARCHY
SRI LANKA PM, PRESIDENT QUIT AS PALACE STORMED
Sri Lanka sank into chaos on Saturday night when tens of thousands of protesters stormed the president’s palace and then set fire to the prime minister’s home following months of growing public fury at their leadership.
By the time the crowd reached his house, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had offered to resign, while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa early yesterday agreed to step down after being accused of ruining his nation through corruption and mismanagement.
The president, who heads what has been one of the world’s most formidable ruling families, fled after the protesters, angered by an unprecedented economic crisis, overran his palace in the capital, Colombo, and made their way into his office.
“The president was escorted to safety,” said a defence source. His whereabouts are unknown amid speculation he was trying to flee abroad.
The angry mob burnt down the prime minister’s home, although he and his family were not inside.
There were reports that dozens of protesters had been injured in clashes with security forces in Colombo on Saturday. A surging crowd of chanting demonstrators had gathered in the heart of the city and marched on the president’s mansion, which has become a focus of anger over nepotism, corruption and Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas in a futile effort to hold them back but thousands of protesters breached their lines and burst into the whitewashed, colonial-era residence.
A Facebook livestream from inside showed protesters frolicking in the palm-fringed swimming pool. Others sat on sofas and a four-poster bed, while some even had showers. Some were filmed emptying a chest of drawers or watching television. Hundreds more milled about in the grounds with no security in sight.
Protesters chanting “Gota go home!” – using the president’s nickname – also forced their way through heavy metal gates into the finance ministry and Rajapaksa’s seafront offices, which had been the site of a sit-in protest for the past three months.
Wickremesinghe, who had done several stints in the post previously and was appointed again in May, agreed to step down “so as to ensure safety of the citizens” in line with a “recommendation by the opposition party leaders”, his office said. He, also, had been moved to a secure location.
Demonstrations were also held in Galle, 124km from Colombo,
where chanting and firecrackers could be heard in the stadium where Australia’s second cricket Test against Sri Lanka was under way.
Trouble had been simmering for months over shortages of food, fuel and medicine and power cuts, a collapsing rupee and soaring inflation, which hit a record 54.6 per cent and is expected to hit 70 per cent.
The island of 22 million people had been a beacon of relative prosperity with nearuniversal literacy and was a tourist idyll. The drop in tourism revenue during Covid compounded the crisis.
The most catastrophic effect on the economy was the government’s decision to switch to organic farming. A ban on fertiliser and pesticides last year wrecked rice crops and drove up the price of staples. Anger has grown since the country stopped fuel shipments, forcing school closures and strict rationing of petrol and diesel.