San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Protests prompt Sri Lanka state of emergency
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s strongman president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has declared a state of emergency for the second time in just more than a month as his government confronts large, continuing protests over a deepening economic crisis.
The announcement came late Friday, after a general strike closed shops and businesses across the South Asian island nation. Protesters outside the Parliament building in Colombo, the capital, blocked exits, trapping lawmakers inside for hours as police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.
Protesters are demanding the resignations of Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the prime minister, who have been accused of mismanaging the economy and sending Sri Lanka spiraling toward bankruptcy. The country’s usable foreign exchange reserves have plummeted to below $50 million, according to the finance minister. Food prices are soaring, hospitals have run out of essential medicine, and fuel shortages have led to lengthy power cuts.
For days, news reports had suggested that the president might offer the protesters a concession by asking the prime minister to resign. Those reports intensified Friday evening, but the prime minister’s office denied that he had been asked to step down.
Instead, the president, a former defense secretary who has been accused of overseeing atrocities during Sri Lanka’s long civil war, declared a state of emergency. The measure gives security forces sweeping powers to arrest and detain people, and it authorizes the president to deploy the military as well as police to quell protests.
A government spokesperson, Mohan Samaranayake, said in a statement Saturday that the protests had “posed a grave threat to the security of public life” and had “deepened the economic crisis.” He called the state-of-emergency declaration “a short-term measure.”
Protests continued Saturday in Colombo and elsewhere.