Sri Lanka descends into chaos
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Anarchy enveloped Sri Lanka Wednesday as protesters overran the interim leader’s offices hours after the unpopular president fled the country, leaving it unclear who held power.
Mass demonstrations and tear gas filled the streets of the capital, and late into the night, protesters clashed with police outside Parliament, the only top government compound that hadn’t been occupied. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka, a supporter of the protest movement, warned of “a situation of lawlessness.”
Months of largely peaceful protest and power struggles have moved the country no closer to addressing the root cause of popular fury: a crashed economy that has brought fuel shortages, rising food prices and widespread misery.
It’s also unclear whether the departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was a lasting step toward demonstrators’ goal of breaking his family’s hold on power.
The day began with a bombshell: Rajapaksa had left the island nation before dawn on a military aircraft to the Maldives. Over the weekend, tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of protesters had stormed his offices and residence, and he had gone into hiding.
“The thieves are running away,” said Sanjayra Perera, a university librarian who was among the thousands of protesters who traveled to Colombo with her two young children.
To the demonstrators, it felt like victory, confirmation of statements by government officials that the president and the equally unpopular prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, would step down. But tensions grew amid confusion over Rajapaksa’s status and just who was in charge.
As the day wore on, it emerged that the old guard was trying to cling to power. Rajapaksa had left but not resigned. His ally Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena,
the Parliament speaker, read a statement on behalf of the president saying Rajapaksa had appointed Wickremesinghe as acting president “while the president is overseas.”
Even after fleeing, Rajapaksa, 73, wasn’t committing to ending his presidency. Instead, he was leaving as caretaker someone they despised, who had been expected to leave office as well.
A massive crowd marched on Wickremesinghe’s offices, demanding he step down. After a standoff that involved security forces firing constant rounds of tear gas, protesters overran the compound.
“The whole country has rejected (Rajapaksa),” Shameen Opanayke, a 22-year-old with his sisters and mother at the protest in Colombo.
Of Wickremesinghe, he said, “Nobody wants him either.”
In a televised address, Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and asked security forces to retake the overrun government buildings.
“We have to rid this country of this fascist threat,” he said.