Matthew Campbell Courtesy Times (UK)

Voters furious at corruption and economic meltdown set fire to the prime minister’s home and stormed the presidential residence

Sunday July 10 2022, 4.30am, The Sunday Times

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka sank into chaos last night when tens of thousands of protesters stormed the president’s official residence 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, the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, had offered to resign and form an all-party government to tackle the crisis engulfing the country.

Shortly afterwards the speaker of parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, reported that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had informed him that he would step down on Wednesday. I urge everyone for the sake of the country to maintain peace to enable a smooth transition,” Abeywardena said.

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Protesters storm Sri Lankan president’s residence

The president’s whereabouts remained a mystery amid speculation that he was trying to flee abroad. According to one account, Rajapaksa, who heads what has been one of the world’s most formidable ruling families, had left the residence on Friday over safety concerns ahead of the protests. The president was escorted to safety,” said a defence source. He is still the president. He is being protected by a military unit.”

There were reports that dozens of protesters had been injured in clashes with security forces in the capital Colombo yesterday. Earlier 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 used 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. Some were filmed emptying out a chest of drawers or watching television. Hundreds more milled about in the grounds of the residence with no security guards in sight.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators overran government buildings

DINUKA LIYANAWATTE/REUTERS

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, when the entire cabinet was forced to go, agreed to step down so as to ensure safety of the citizens” in line with a recommendation by the opposition party leaders”, said a statement from his office. He, also, had been moved to a secure location.

Demonstrations were also held in Galle, 77 miles from Colombo, where chanting and firecrackers could be heard in the stadium where Australia’s second Test against Sri Lanka was under way. The protesters cheered as news spread of the president’s residence being stormed.

Trouble had been simmering for months over shortages of food, fuel and medicine and long power cuts, a collapsing rupee and soaring inflation, which hit a record 54.6 per cent in June and is expected to rise soon to 70 per cent.

President Rajapaksa was taken to a secure location on Friday. Demonstrators stormed his house today

REUTERS

Until recently, the teardrop-shaped island of 22 million people off the southern Indian coast was a beacon of relative prosperity with near-universal literacy, a poster-child for Asian democracy. It was also a tourist idyll for whale-watching, turtles and powder-white beaches.

But the unrest of the past few months has put paid to that, the drop in tourism revenue compounding a crisis that began in March with largely peaceful protests.

Nothing, however, has had a more catastrophic effect on the economy than the government’s decision to switch to organic farming. A ban on fertiliser and pesticides introduced in April last year wrecked rice crops and drove up the price of staples. Anger has grown since the country stopped receiving fuel shipments, forcing school closures and strict rationing of petrol and diesel.

The government had tried to stop the weekend demonstration by imposing a curfew. But protesters were undeterred and the curfew was lifted after pressure groups and opposition parties objected.

Anger at the government has been growing for weeks

Demonstrators converged on the capital, many arriving on foot, others packed onto buses and trucks. Some were said by an official to have commandeered” trains. This is a dicey situation. If a clear transition is not put in place the president and prime minister’s resignation will create a power vacuum that could be dangerous,” Kusal Perera, a political analyst, told Reuters. The speaker can appoint a new all-party government but whether they will be accepted by the protesters remains to be seen.”

Until now, Rajapaksa, whose brother, Mahinda, had served previously as president and was forced to resign as prime minister in May, had steadfastly resisted calls to leave power. He appeared to have pinned his hopes of rescue on talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a $3 billion bailout.

This morning the IMF issued a statement saying it is hoping for a resolution that will allow for resumption of our dialogue on an IMF-supported program”. Opposition MPs suggested the speaker of Parliament would take over as temporary president to form an interim government.

Police have been attempting to keep crowds under control with tear gas and water cannon

DINUKA LIYANAWATTE/REUTERS

A powerful landowning family, the Rajapaksa brothers dominated local politics before ascending to the national stage for a decade in 2005 under Mahinda, who made Gotabaya his defence secretary — a big jump for the younger sibling who had lived in the US after retiring from the Sri Lankan army.

The brothers proved a popular but divisive duo, hailed as heroes among the Sinhalese, who comprise 70 per cent of the population, for bringing an end to the 30-year civil war against ethnic Tamil rebels in 2009 after a brutal military campaign that led to accusations of war crimes on both sides.

Demonstrators celebrate after entering the president’s residence

DINUKA LIYANAWATTE/REUTERS

Many Sri Lankans believe the president allowed his relatives to plunder the country’s wealth. Besides the president and prime minister, four other Rajapaksas held ministerial posts until April.

We have told Gota over and over again to go home but he is still clinging onto power,” said Sampath Perera, a fisherman who came for the march from Negombo, 30 miles north of the capital. We will not stop until he listens to us.” Last night it finally appeared that he had.

Sri Lanka