In "The Most Chaotic Day", the "Rajapaksa Family Museum" in the village of Meda Murana in the south, the base camp of the Rajapaksa family, was razed to the ground, and the wax statues of the president and prime minister's parents were destroyed.
People wait for a train at a train station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on March 31. Photo: Xinhua News Agency
Text | Pottery short room
On May 9, local time, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa announced his resignation. Since the end of March, the situation in Sri Lanka, which has been in turmoil, has become even more intense. But even the prime minister's announcement of resignation did not change the dire situation facing his fifth brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Unrest that cannot be dispelled
At the end of March, large-scale anti-government riots broke out across Sri Lanka, and on March 31, rioters broke into the president's residence and the president declared a state of emergency the next day, which led to intensified protests.
In the midst of the chaos, as many as 26 of the 27 cabinet members resigned on April 3, leaving only the prime minister. On 5 April, the ruling Popular Front party lost its parliamentary majority as many as 41 elected members. All major opposition parties refused to join the "cross-party coalition government" called for by the president and prime minister, which continued the political crisis and social unrest.
During this period, demonstrators set up tents in the capital Colombo and throughout the country in a gesture of "protracted war", while pro-ruling parties and prime ministers also began to organize and clashed sporadically with demonstrators with the help of the police.
On May 9, under pressure from all sides, Prime Minister Mahinda, who had been president for 10 years but had previously refused to resign, and the cabinet that had just been formed for one month and four days announced their general resignations, and President Gotabaya once again called for the formation of a "cross-party coalition government". But Sri Lanka was soon mired in the country's largest unrest since independence, outside of the civil war.
Proponents of the Prime Minister said that demonstrators broke into the Prime Minister's residence in the "Temple Tree" during a day and night of riots, found it empty, and then set off a nationwide "hunting" frenzy: they blocked the capital's highway to Bandaranaike International Airport to prevent the Prime Minister from fleeing abroad by plane; they stormed military bases, institutions (because the Prime Minister and his family were rumored to be hiding in it) and burned houses, buildings, cars and other facilities suspected of being related to the Prime Minister and his supporters, spurred by various versions of rumors. Even the Trincomalee Naval Base, far to the northeast, was not spared.
During the riots, ruling mp Achu clara was killed in the town of Netabwa near Colombo, two other ruling lawmakers were injured, and at least 41 official residences and 47 cars of ruling party leaders, including nishanta and Patilana, were burned, killing at least 8 people and injuring 200 people, police said.
The demonstrators accused that the riot was caused by the fact that when the prime minister issued a televised speech on resignation, some pro-prime minister politicians instigated it, and even chartered a car to personally lead a large number of supporters with iron rods to smash the tent camp on the demonstrator's side. While chanting slogans calling for the prime minister to remain in office, they beat up demonstrators while the police stood by and watched, eventually angering the crowded demonstrators and leading to massive reprisals.
The demonstrators also claimed that the dead Achukrala "shot and killed two demonstrators with his own hands" and that the other did not name the ruling party and government officials who also killed two people, thus receiving retaliation. Amid the chaos, another person from some police sources allegedly claimed that Achukrala had committed suicide.
At present, it is difficult to distinguish between the two sides of the accusations, but in any case, the riots and bloody violence have escalated to an unprecedented level. As early as May 6, before the riots, President Gotabaya declared a second state of emergency in five weeks. In the early morning of the 10th, the president instructed the military to "open fire on the spot" and authorized them to arrest suspects without arrest warrants, and later declared an extension of the state of emergency and imposed a curfew. In the midst of the tense chaos, the riots in the streets were temporarily stabilized.
On April 1, a power shopping mall in Colombo, Sri Lanka, lost power. Photo: Xinhua News Agency
Economic and political crises
The Rajapaksa family is one of the few political hereditary families in Sri Lanka. Prime Minister Mahinda, who served two terms as president and led the country to win sri Lanka's civil war, once enjoyed a high reputation. After a terrorist bombing in 2019, President Gotabaya held high the banner of "change". Subsequently, his family quickly took over sri Lanka's military, political and financial powers, and at its peak the country's president, prime minister, finance minister, minister of roads and transport and minister of sports were all surnamed Rajapaksa.
In particular, at the beginning of Gotabaya's presidency, he hastily announced tax cuts in order to win the hearts and minds of the people and fulfill his campaign promises, resulting in a shortage of fiscal spending, and then in April 2021 announced a ban on the import of fertilizers from abroad (the country relies on almost all fertilizers), and boasted that "Sri Lanka became the world's first green agricultural country with zero fertilizer use", resulting in the country's agricultural production falling to 25% of the original level.
Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has also hit tourism, one of Sri Lanka's pillar industries, while agriculture and other industries have been tossed and turned by the ruling authorities.
Another problem is that the situation has intensified since the collapse of the crisis in Ukraine since the end of last year, when sri Lanka needs at least 40,000 tons of natural gas per month and the monthly import cost has risen to $40 million. The soaring price of natural gas has not only severely restricted Sri Lanka's industry and commerce, but also begun to affect people's livelihoods - due to the combination of natural gas price increases and chaotic decisions on large-scale infrastructure construction, Sri Lanka's power shortage is increasing, from two to four times a day, and urban residents are also deeply inconvenienced to travel, cook, etc.
Fuel shortages have also exacerbated Sri Lanka's agricultural crisis: due to soil characteristics, Sri Lanka's arable land needs to be ploughed twice before rice is sown, and it takes only a few hours with a tractor, and now the tractor "nests", and it takes a full 10 laborers to toss the ground at a time.
In addition, official data said that as of March, Sri Lanka's foreign exchange reserves were only $1.93 billion, while the external debt to be repaid this year was as high as $7 billion, and the total external debt reached more than $35 billion, accounting for 75% of the annual GDP, which is only official data.
Finance Minister Sabri, who has just resigned, said last week that Sri Lanka's current available foreign exchange reserves were only $50 million, "just enough to buy gas for a month." The Sri Lankan government recently announced the suspension of foreign debt repayment and sought to negotiate debt restructuring with "creditors".
The crumbling Rajapaksa "Dynasty"
Judging from the current situation, the President of Sri Lanka still hopes to continue to govern and tide over the difficulties, even at the expense of his brothers and his brothers as scapegoats. And after the "most chaotic day", the street unrest in Sri Lanka appears to be under control for the time being.
But as many analysts have pointed out, Gotabaya has been unable to address a range of root causes of social discontent, such as falling revenues, widening public spending gaps, shortages of goods, inadequate supplies of medicines, soaring prices, and hardships in livelihoods.
At the same time, many local observers pointed out that several serious emergencies in this social unrest were initially caused by large outbreaks of "desire and dissatisfaction" of citizens who lined up in long lines to change liquefied gas or rush to buy necessities for people's livelihood.
In "The Most Chaotic Day", the "Rajapaksa Family Museum" in the village of Meda Murana in the south, the base camp of the Rajapaksa family, was razed to the ground, and the wax statues of the president and prime minister's parents were destroyed. "Rajapaksa landmarks" such as the Rajapaksa Mansion in hambantota constituency, the Rajapaksa Political Office in another location, and the tourist hotel jointly run by the prime minister's son have all become the focus of attacks by anti-government demonstrators.
Faced with the double pressure of surging public opinion and opposition parties refusing to join the "multi-party coalition government", Speaker Abawadana and Attorney General La Galatna, among others, demanded that parliament be convened as soon as possible and that accountability for the riots be initiated. The parliament was scheduled for May 14.
Although Sri Lanka's president is elected by the people and is not bound by parliament, many analysts believe that he will face greater pressure in the coming period, and the once-hyped Rajapaksa "dynasty" is in danger of collapse.
But the opposition parties are not unanimous on other matters other than opposing the Rajapaksa family. Not only that, but they are also helpless about the root cause of Sri Lanka's political crisis, the economic and social crisis, which is bound to be a difficult knot.
Written by / Tao Short Room (Columnist)
Edited by / Ma Xiaolong
Proofreading / Chen Diyan