Colombo, Sri Lanka – Police in Sri Lanka have imposed a curfew in the country’s capital after clashes with protesters attempting to storm President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence amid mounting anger over a deepening economic crisis that has seen power cuts to roll has led.
In a statement to the media late Thursday, Inspector General of Police CD Wickramaratne said the curfew would last in most of Colombo’s districts “until further notice”.
The move came after hundreds of protesters in the capital’s Mirihana district threw stones at and collided with police as they broke through the first line of barricades blocking the road to Rajapaksa’s home early in the evening.
The crowd chanted “Go home Gota!” and “Gota is a dictator”.
Videos from the protest page, posted to Facebook by News Wire news agency, showed a police bus on fire and protesters tending to a man with a bloodied face.
It was not clear if the President was at his residence at the time.
A police spokesman declined to comment.
Police disperse protesters near the residence of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa [Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters]
A protester throws a stone near the residence of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa [Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters]
Demands for Rajapaksa’s resignation came as Sri Lanka grappled with an economic downturn triggered by a foreign exchange crisis that left the government unable to pay for imports of fuel, food and other essentials . Fuel shortages have caused power outages lasting up to 13 hours and some state hospitals have suspended routine operations.
Sri Lanka has turned to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout and is also seeking financial help from China and India. Beijing and New Delhi are reportedly considering offering loan facilities worth $1.5 billion each, in addition to billions of dollars in loans requested by Rajapaksa’s government.
Thursday’s protest was the latest in a series of late-night demonstrations in the Colombo suburbs. It started peacefully as hundreds of people gathered a few blocks from Rajapaksa’s residence.
“We came to protest the unbearable cost of living, fuel shortages and power outages,” said 26-year-old Ajith Perera, who spoke to Al Jazeera before police cracked down. “The decision to come to the President’s house was spontaneous. We want the President who caused so much destruction to go home.”
Mohamed Asri, a 21-year-old protester, told Al Jazeera he traveled to Mirihana from another district of Colombo after seeing coverage of the protest on local TV channels.
“The economy is so bad we can barely eat two meals,” he said. “It’s never been this bad in my entire life. Gota has to go.”
“Everyone is angry”
After the gathering in Mirihana turned violent, protests spread across the city, with protesters holding burning logs blocking the main road from Colombo to Kandy, Sri Lanka’s second largest city.
“I’m angry, everyone is angry,” protester Saman Wanasinghe said. “Who knows what will happen now? There will be protests everywhere.”
Analysts have said that Sri Lanka’s economic crisis – which emerged as recently as 2009 from a 26-year civil war – stems from mismanagement by the Rajapaksa government during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite an ill-timed tax break that drained state coffers and border closures that caused tourism revenue to disappear, the government delayed seeking IMF help, they said.
Amid the inaction, Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen by 70 percent in two years.
Alan Keenan, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, said Thursday’s protest outside Rajapaksa’s home was “an unprecedented display of anger and defiance” against the president, who is feared by many, partly because – as a former defense minister – he was the gory led the campaign that crushed the 2009 ethnic Tamil uprising in Sri Lanka.
Rights groups also say that Rajapaksa and his older brother Mahinda, who was then president, oversaw a crackdown on those who opposed the military’s brutal tactics, including journalists and dissidents from the country’s Sinhala Buddhist majority.
The Rajapaksas lost power after an election in 2015 amid rising public anger at authoritarianism, nepotism and corruption. But they returned to power just four years later, with Gotabaya Rajapaksa winning the presidency after championing a platform to improve security in the wake of a deadly ISIL-alleged attack on churches and hotels in the country.
His brother Mahinda Rajapaksa then became prime minister. And her eldest brother was appointed Minister of Agriculture while the youngest brother became Minister of Finance.
Keenan said Thursday’s protests indicated “a fundamental shift in attitude and willingness to act” on the part of the Sri Lankan public.
However, he warned that removing Gotabaya Rajapaksa is virtually impossible as 2020 constitutional reforms have given the President extraordinary powers while his party has a firm grip on Parliament.
“With anger rising and inhibitions against violent protest receding, the current situation, while containing potential seeds of democratic change, is very dangerous,” Keenan said.
“Many fear that the government may resort to violence, either directly or through a staged incident, perhaps to divert popular anger towards Muslims. The vigilance of influential governments and international bodies such as the United Nations is therefore essential.”
Rathindra Kuruwita reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka while Zaheena Rasheed reported and wrote from Male, Maldives.