A protestor wearing a mask of Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa performs during a protest against President Rajapaksa in front of the Presidential Secretariat, amid the country's economic crisis in Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Reuters)Sri Lanka Crisis Live News Updates: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to address the nation on Monday evening, amidst the growing pressure on him to quit following the unprecedented economic crisis facing the island nation. The Prime Minister’s speech will come at a time when the nation is rocked by massive anti-government protests over weeks of lengthy power outages and shortage of gas, food and other essentials, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported. Mahinda Rajapaksa will issue a special statement today evening, the report said.
A leader from Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition said on Monday that three members of the alliance had proposed forming an interim government, a week after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa called for a unity administration amid unrest and a severe economic crisis, news agency Reuters reported. “The main proposal is to have an all-party committee to make key decisions and the appointment of a new prime minister and limited Cabinet,” said Udaya Gammanpila, chief of the Jathika Hela Urumaya party. Rajapaksa’s elder brother, Mahinda, currently serves as prime minister. Meanwhile, efforts to establish an all-party interim government in Sri Lanka remained inconclusive as the talks between President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the group of independents from his own ruling SLPP coalition failed to make progress on the issue. Government sources said that appointing the balance 26 members of the Cabinet would be further delayed, PTI reported.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on Sunday said that it is ready to support the Opposition in moving a no-confidence motion against the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and is prepared to impeach the leader, PTI reported. The SJB and TNA combined have 64 seats in the 225-member assembly. The Rajapaksa government, which has more than 150 seats with allies, lost 42 members, when they declared independence from the SLPP-ruling coalition. The Parliament is not scheduled to meet before April 19.
Food is kept on a placard as Muslim protestors Iftar (breaking of fast) during the holy month of Ramadan while they protest against Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa near the Presidential Secretariat. (Reuters)
Three parties that recently withdrew from Sri Lanka's ruling coalition have proposed forming an interim government with a new prime minister replacing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's brother, they said on Monday, as the country's economic crisis rolls on. Three parties that 16 of those lawmakers belong to told reporters that they had met the president and the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and that more talks were scheduled for Tuesday.
Dragged down by debt, the island nation of 22 million people is running short of power, fuel, food and medicines due to a lack of money for imports. It has reached out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and countries like India and China for urgent financial help.
Rajapaksa dissolved his cabinet last week and called for a unity government to help tackle the crisis, as 41 lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition to become independents in the 225-seat parliament. The government has said it has a majority despite their walkout. (Reuters)
The shortages in Sri Lanka are crippling, and have led to widespread misery, but they have not led to starvation. People are not rioting for food, as many outside Sri Lanka seem to think. They are protesting against the government’s failure to prevent the economic meltdown. And they want the Rajapaksa ruling family to go.
Queues stretch at government-run fair price shops — to buy essential commodities in short supply, such as rice, dal and flour and milk powder — because the prices in these outlets are still low. In private groceries and supermarkets, the prices are three to four times higher. People who can afford to, are buying from these shops. But quantities per customer are restricted. Nirupama Subramanian reports from Sri Lanka
A tourist in Sri Lanka said she will support the people of the country and termed the current situation as "shameful". Speaking to ANI, tourist from Turkey, Maaya said: "I am really happy to support these people. The power of people is endless. I am on a tourist visa but this situation is really shameful; no electricity, no food. Sri Lankans are suffering, and if they suffer, we suffer too. This nation deserves better."
When former justice minister Ali Sabry visited Sri Lanka's president last Monday, it was for talks amid an economic crisis that has brought thousands of protesters on to the street and left the island nation short of fuel, medicine and power. By the time Sabry left the meeting with Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to his surprise he was finance minister, thrust into the centre of a financial storm that will not be easy to calm.
Even after accepting the new job, Sabry had doubts. Some 24 hours later, amid questions about his suitability and concerns within his family over whether it was the right decision, he said he sent a resignation letter to the president.
For four days after his resignation offer, no other candidate stepped forward, he said, and by Friday he had resolved to go ahead, following further discussions with family, the president and officials.
On Friday, when Sabry rose to speak in parliament, a lawmaker pointedly asked what capacity he was talking in. Sabry confirmed that he was still finance minister.
Faced with the challenge of immediately finding $3 billion to pay for essential goods that he describes as "Herculean", Sabry said he has the full backing of the president, the prime minister and his ruling party leaders. He must also lead what are expected to be complicated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over a much-needed loan programme. Sabry said he had confidence in a team of key officials, including a new central bank governor and treasury secretary, alongside an advisory committee.
"I'm willing to do this as long as it takes," Sabry said. (Reuters)
Protesters Sunday shouted slogans against Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa near the Presidential Secretariat amid the country's economic crisis in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Reuters Photos
Efforts to establish an all-party interim government in Sri Lanka to deal with the unprecedented economic crisis remained inconclusive as the talks between President Gotabaya Rajapaka and the group of independents from his own ruling SLPP coalition failed to make progress on the issue.
On Sunday, President Gotabaya invited the eleven-party coalition allies comprising 42 independent MPs for a discussion on the country's worst economic crisis.
"We discussed our letter which contained 11 points in regard to our proposal, the talks would continue," Vasudeva Nanayakkara, an independent group member, told reporters on Monday. He and 41 others had declared independence from the ruling coalition last week but declined to join the Opposition.
The government sources said that appointing the balance 26 members of the Cabinet would be further delayed. (PTI)
In the small fishing town of Tangalle, 200 km from Colombo, Carlton, the ancestral home of Sri Lanka’s ruling family, used to be thronged by adoring visitors whenever Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa visited.
The mood has changed.
Until a few months ago, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone with a bad opinion of the Rajapaksas in this family pocket borough. In 2015, after Mahinda’s shock defeat in the presidential elections, tearful supporters greeted him in this village and pledged to bring him back to power. But it seems that even here, people have run out of patience.
Last week, around 200 local students were not as polite as Roshan in expressing their discontent. Shouting “Go Gota Go” against Mahinda’s brother President Gotabaya, they marched down the road towards Carlton. They broke through the yellow barricades and rushed towards the house until the police used teargas and water cannons to disperse them. Nirupama Subramanian reports from Sri Lanka
As many as 19 Sri Lankan refugees reached the Tamil Nadu coast on Sunday. According to official sources, all of them, including women and children, reached the Rameswaram coast in two separate boats from Sri Lanka’s northern regions. With the arrival of the latest batch, a total of 39 Sri Lankan Tamils have reached India since March 22. Officials who interviewed the asylum seekers on Sunday said they had come from Mullaitheevu, Vavuniya, and Trincomalee regions. They came in two boats -- 9 persons in one and 10 in another.
“After the Coastal Security police of the state government was alerted about their presence in Dhanushkodi, a police team went and secured their custody before shifting them to Mandapam refugee camp near Rameswaram. The Coast Guard and Central agencies have been alerted as part of the standard procedure,” said a senior police officer monitoring the situation in Ramanathapuram.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has invited the eleven-party coalition allies comprising 42 independent MPs for a discussion on the country's worst economic crisis, according to a media report. During the meeting, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday evening, the MPs will also request the president to remove his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and appoint a new cabinet to address the unprecedented crisis faced by the island nation. --PTI
Former Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe thanked India for helping the island nation in the times of an economic crisis.
He told ANI, "I think India has helped to the maximum. We will have to see, and they are still helping in non-financial ways. So, we have to be thankful to them."
He also clarified that "no heavy Chinese investment" has been done under the current dispensation. "They've sought investments but investments haven't come in. I think discussions are on about rescheduling of repayment of loans. They've to talked to the Chinese government, that's all I know," Wickremesinghe said.
Blaming the Rajpaksas for mismanagement, the former prime minister said, "The government didn't look after the economy. They were told several times to go to the IMF. They decided not to go on advice of the central bank and the treasury. People are paying the price now. It's understandable that they want a change."
The protests in Sri Lanka are a “massive explosion” against the lack of governmental measures for the betterment of people since the civil war ended in 2009, according to Indian Express' correspondent in Colombo.
The country has seen corruption, LTTE attacks, power crisis, limited fuel and food, displacement, disappearances and death. As the war ended and Rajapaksas came into office, they chose to “use the moment to deepen the ethnic divide, gloating over the victory, failing to address the devastation of the Tamil community, and militarising the Sinhala Buddhist majority”, Indian Express correspondent Nirupama Subramanian writes.
A non-Rajapaksa government in 2015-19 remained paralysed owing to internal squabbles and was followed by the Easter attacks, return of Rajapaksas and the pandemic. “What Sri Lanka is going through now was in many ways inevitable but no one thought it would happen because it had never happened before,” according to Subramanian.
Sri Lanka’s newspapers are continuing to print despite massive economic constraints. The shortage of dollars has affected media houses too, especially organisations that are into the print business as newsprint, which is imported, is short in supply.
Some newspapers have also cut down on the number of editions and pages. One even suspended publication on Saturday in order to continue printing its Sunday edition. Read more
Sri Lanka’s economic distress and its ruling Rajapaksa family have achieved what many thought was impossible: bringing Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim together and, at least for now, uniting them in one cry: “Go Gota go”.
On the streets, protestors chant: “We are not divided by class, We are not divided by race.” A new generation of Sri Lankans has taken the lead in the outpouring of anger against the Rajapaksa family, and they do not appear to carry the baggage of Sri Lanka’s ethnic divide – described in Sri Lanka as racial divide — which the Rajapaksas, both Gotabaya and his brother Mahinda, did nothing to end, continuing to feed it even after the civil war ended in 2009. Read more
IN 2001, when the Sri Lankan economy registered negative growth of minus-1.4 per cent after a particularly bad phase in the war against Tamil Tigers, G L Peiris, then the finance minister, was asked what the fallout would be. He retorted: “When you are sleeping on a straw mat, you don’t fall off.”
Two decades on, Sri Lanka has fallen off the straw mat. Read more
Exuding confidence in overcoming the unprecedented economic crisis, the newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Nandalal Weerasinghe said that one of the ways to overcome the current crisis situation is to allow the Central Bank to function independently.
He further said that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had given him the authority to run the bank independently and also asked him to expedite measures to get the country out of the crisis.
Speaking at his first media briefing after assuming his duties on Friday evening, the new governor expressed confidence that he will be able to resolve the economic crisis of the country, the Colombo Page reported. Weerasinghe said that his intention is to maintain the Central Bank as an independent institution that could make any decision without any political interferences.
Sri Lanka is scheduled to start talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on April 11. The talks would lead to a possible bailout, including assistance on restructuring foreign debt.
The 10-party alliance of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) coalition is due to meet President Rajapaksa to discuss the formation of the all-party interim government.
The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) said that they are to meet to take forward the process of moving a no-confidence motion against the government. The SJP has started taking signatures of MPs for the no-confidence motion.
The President has defended his government's actions, saying the foreign exchange crisis was not his making and the economic downturn was largely pandemic driven with the island nation's tourism revenue and inward remittances waning. (AP)
A massive anti-government street protest demanding Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation has turned into an all-night vigil as over 10,000 demonstrators gathered at the Galle Face Green urban park amidst the unprecedented economic crisis in the island nation.
Since mid-day Saturday, the protesters from all walks of life marched into Galle Face where Rajapaksa's secretariat is located.
By evening, the main Galle Road was completely blocked with protesters bringing the traffic to a standstill. "We are still here," a participant at the site had a social media posting by 6 am on Sunday. They claimed that mobile phone signals had been jammed in the area.
Eyewitnesses said that a section of the protesters had remained for the all-night vigil. They were chanting 'Go home Gota', urging the President to resign. "This is not a joke, we are here because we have no electricity, gas, fuel and medicine," a protester told reporters. "They must go, they have no solutions," another said, adding that they have no political leaning. (AP)