Lanka troops demolish protest camp
Sri Lankan security forces demolished the main anti-government protest camp in the capital Colombo yesterday, evicting activists in a pre-dawn assault that raised international concern for dissent under the crisis-wracked country’s new proWestern president.
Media footage showed soldiers in riot gear and armed with assault rifles tearing down the camp, set up in April by protesters enraged by the country’s economic collapse and acute shortages of fuel, food and medicine.
Hundreds of soldiers removed demonstrators’ barricades and tents outside the colonial-era Presidential Secretariat building in Colombo, while the last remaining protesters on the premises – some were still on the steps – were baton-charged away.
“A joint operation involving the military, police and police special forces was launched in the early hours to recover the presidential secretariat from the protesters as they have no legal right to hold it,” police spokesperson Nalin Thalduwa told Reuters.
Nine people arrested in the pre-dawn raid were later granted bail by a Colombo court, police said.
The operation came hours before President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed an old friend as prime minister and the ousted head of state’s personal lawyer as foreign minister.
Wickremesinghe was elected president by legislators on Wednesday to replace Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore and resigned after demonstrators chased him from his palace.
The remaining protesters – far fewer than the thousands who overran several government buildings earlier this month – have been demanding that Wickremesinghe also quit.
They accuse him of protecting the Rajapaksa clan who have dominated politics for much of the last two decades.
By sunrise, police commandos and soldiers barricaded the complex and the main roads leading to the area were cordoned off.
Angered by the pre-dawn raids, hundreds of protesters marched from the city’s main railway station towards the Galle Face protest site, where military and riot police manning barricades held them back.
“The very first day he used the armed forces – this is the face of Ranil Wickremesinghe,” said Rajeevkanth Rajkumar, a construction company executive who was among the protesters. “We don’t want any more innocent people to be injured. But we will go to that place (the protest site) at any cost.”
“Don’t attack peaceful protesters, instead listen to us,” said student Dimmithu, 26.
The activists insisted they would continue their struggle, and Basantha Samarasinghe, 45, a businessman and trade union leader, said: “The peoples’ wish is system change, and parliament should be dissolved. It has no public mandate.”
Police said in a statement that security forces acted to clear protesters who were “illegally occupying” the presidential compound, with nine people arrested, two of whom were injured.
Wickremesinghe later met several Colombo-based diplomats, and US ambassador Julie Chung tweeted that she expressed “my grave concern over the unnecessary & deeply troubling escalation of violence against protesters overnight”.
“This is not the time to crack down on citizens,” she added.
The European Union said freedom of expression is essential for Sri Lanka to transition from its chaos.
“Hard to see how restricting it severely can help in finding solutions to the current political and economic crises,” the EU delegation in Colombo said.
A foreign exchange crisis triggered by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic was exacerbated by mismanagement, critics say, with Sri Lankans left to suffer lengthy power blackouts and recordhigh inflation.
The country’s 22mn people have also endured months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.
Yesterday Wickremesinghe swore in his political rival Dinesh Gunawardena as the country’s new prime minister.
The two men have been schoolmates and friends since the age of three but lead political parties that are ideologically opposed.
Wickremesinghe is a free-market champion and a pro-West politician while Gunawardena is a staunch Sinhala nationalist who wants greater state control over the economy.
“We have differences, but we have enough friendship to unite to deal with the main problem of the country, that is the economy,” Gunawardena told reporters.
Wickremesinghe also swore in a new cabinet, largely re-instating his predecessor’s ministers but retaining the finance portfolio for himself to continue bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He also replaced the foreign minister with Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s personal lawyer Ali Sabry.
Officials said it was an “interim cabinet” that could be replaced “within weeks”.
Hours after Wickremesinghe – a sixtime prime minister who had earlier extended a state of emergency – was elected on Wednesday, he warned protesters that occupying state buildings was illegal and that they would be evicted unless they left on their own.
The day his predecessor was forced to flee, protesters also set fire to Wickremesinghe’s private home in the capital.
Amnesty International urged Sri Lankan authorities to respect dissent and condemned the use of force against journalists, including a BBC photographer kicked in the stomach by troops who confiscated his videos.
Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa accused the government of using excessive force.
“Nothing can justify this inhumane act,” he said. “Is attacking foreign journalists the most innovative policy of the new government to promote tourism?”