Sri Lankan president says he’ll resign after angry protesters storm his home
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will step down on July 13, the Parliament’s speaker announced late night Saturday after a dramatic day that saw tens of thousands of protesters storming the presidential office and residence and the prime minister’s home being set on fire.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that he would resign Saturday after tens of thousands of protesters swarmed over Colombo and stormed the presidential office and residence in the midst of a deepening economic and political crisis.
The speaker, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, said Rajapaksa will resign Wednesday to facilitate a smooth transition of power. Rajapaksa, whose hand was forced by demonstrators angry over a deepening economic crisis had shifted out of the presidential house Friday ahead of the planned protests and his whereabouts remain unknown. Many hold his family responsible for the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Issuing an appeal for calm, the Speaker asked protesters to return home and not indulge in violence. Earlier in the evening, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had offered to resign to quell the growing unrest.
But the prime minister’s offer did nothing to placate the protesters. Late in the night, crowds barged into Wickremesinghe’s private home and set it on fire. The police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and local media reported police officers assaulted journalists outside the prime minister’s residence.
Earlier in the day, thousands of people carrying the yellow and red Sri Lankan flag marched toward the president’s home chanting “Gota, go home.” The police fired tear gas to deter the marchers. But they swept past the police officers and breached the barricades to reach the president’s office and residence. Visuals from local media showed people roaming through the president’s house taking selfies or taking a dip in the swimming pool. Others made their way into the kitchen and were seen cooking. In the president’s gym, some tried out the weights while others were seen running on treadmills.
Sri Lanka has been engulfed in anti-government street protests for months, and Saturday’s was the latest expression of anger against the president, who has clung to power even as his brother was ousted as prime minister in May.
“We are desperate,” said Himantha Wickremerathne, a 34-year-old lawyer who joined the protests. “People from all walks of life have united with one intention — to demand that the corrupt president who clearly does not have a mandate, to step down.”
Yasas Ratnayake, another protester, described it as a “historic moment” for the country. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said.
People poured into Colombo from other regions by train. Sanath Jayasuriya, a former captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team, joined protesters at a major protest site. His message on Twitter to the president: “The siege is over. Your bastion has fallen.”
Outside the imposing presidential office, the crowd chanted: “You thought you could stop us, but here we are.” Police and security forces abandoned their posts as protesters stood atop water cannons and police vehicles. Dozens of people were injured in clashes throughout the day.
Sri Lanka has been in the grip of a devastating economic crisis as fuel has nearly run out and the inflation rate on food has shot up to 80%. The country has defaulted on its foreign debt repayment and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package, though it has been struggling in the negotiations. Wickremesinghe told parliament recently that the country is “bankrupt.”
We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation than previous negotiations,“Wickremesinghe said.
On Wednesday, Rajapaksa asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for a credit line to purchase fuel. Neighbors such as India have stepped in to help Sri Lanka with food, fuel and humanitarian aid.
Experts say the crisis is a result of a slew of disastrous government policies, including huge tax cuts and a ban on use of chemical fertilizers to promote organic farming that adversely hit agricultural production. The problem was compounded by the coronavirus pandemic that suffocated tourism, a major sector to the nation’s economy.
The day’s developments in Sri Lanka were a product of a ”long history,“economist R. Ramakumar said in a tweet. He blamed the IMF’s ”neoliberal loan packages“and the ”rightwing authoritarian politics,“of the Rajapaksa clan.
The family has dominated Sri Lanka’s politics for more than two decades. Gotabaya and his elder brother, Mahinda, were until recently seen as heroes for their role in crushing the separatist Tamil liberation movement after decades of civil war. Their platform of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism found popular support in the elections.
In 2019, the country was rocked by terrorist attacks, claimed by the Islamic State, that killed more than 250 people.But as the economy began to tank earlier this year, the brothers came under fire.
In May, Mahinda was forced to resign as prime minister after his supporters clashed with anti-government protesters. A new cabinet was sworn in under Wickremesinghe, a former prime minister.
More than 6 million people, about a fourth of the country’s population, are unsure of where their next meal will come from, the World Food Program said last week.