Roving Periscope: After Sri Lankan PM Mahinda, brother President Gotabaya also flees
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Near two months after angry Sri Lankan, reeling under their worst-ever economic crisis since Independence from the British in 1948, forced Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to flee, they also breached security, stormed his brother and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence in Colombo on Saturday, and forced him as well to flee.
As they took control of the President’s House, several protesters started cooking in the Presidential kitchen, eating on sprawling dining tables, or swimming in the large pool on the premises.
While a section of the media reported Gotabaya fled on Saturday, officials, however, stated they “evacuated” the beleaguered President on Friday itself, ahead of the protesters’ planned demonstration over the weekend.
At least 21 people, including two police officers, were injured and hospitalized in the ongoing protests.
According to the media reports, the President fled his home as thousands of aggressive protesters, demanding his resignation, breached tightly guarded security cordons, forced several soldiers also to disappear, and surrounded and stormed the President’s House in Colombo.
Angry mobs, suffering from acute shortages of food, fuel, electricity, and other essentials since March, clashed with the police and breached barricades to storm the President’s residence.
Defense officials, however, informed that they “removed” the President on Friday itself for his safety, ahead of the protesters’ planned rally over the weekend.
The protesters even live-streamed the breach of security on Facebook. Video clips showed people shouting slogans against Gotabaya as they marched through rooms and corridors of the palatial building. Several people walked around on the grounds outside the colonial-era building with no security officials in sight.
Several protesters, holding Sri Lankan flags and helmets, broke into the President’s residence. Police fired shots in the air but could not stop the massive, angry crowd from breaking into the Presidential residence, the media reported.
Earlier, thousands of protesters reached the main entrance to the President’s House, overpowered layers of barricades, and the police were seen withdrawing from the area. They fired shots in the air along with continuous rounds of tear gas.
Protesters have been calling for the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa since March when it emerged that Sri Lanka was experiencing a severe economic crisis. Since then, the island country has seen the price of fuels skyrocket as it stopped receiving shipments. Schools were closed and petrol, diesel, and cooking fuels were rationed as the situation worsened.
In April, a bankrupt Sri Lanka announced a default on international loans worth USD 52 billion.
“They escorted the President to safety,” the reports said, adding troops fired in the air to prevent angry crowds from overrunning the President’s Palace.
Sri Lanka has suffered through months of food and fuel shortages, lengthy blackouts, and galloping inflation after running out of foreign currency to import vital goods.
Huge crowds had poured into the capital for the Saturday demonstration, the latest expression of unrest sparked by the island nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.
Police had withdrawn a curfew order issued on Friday after opposition parties, rights activists and the bar association threatened to sue the police chief.
Thousands of anti-government protesters ignored the stay-home order and even forced railway authorities to operate trains to take them to Colombo for Saturday’s rally, officials said.
