Roving Periscope: Troops crackdown on protesters; Gunawardena’s new Lanka PM
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As a veteran politician, Dinesh Gunawardena took oath as the new Prime Minister in crisis-ridden Sri Lanka on Friday; heavily armed troops took positions on key buildings across the capital Colombo and cracked down on protesters camping in the city since March against the island country’s bankrupt economy.
Six-time Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was, on Thursday, sworn-in as Sri Lanka’s new President until November 2024 to succeed fugitive incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
According to the media reports, before the new Cabinet swearing-in, Sri Lanka’s armed forces raided the capital’s main protest site and assaulted protesters and some media persons. They heavily barricaded key government buildings, including Parliament, and the residences and offices of the President and the Prime Minister.
Gunewardene, 73, a former Foreign and Education Minister, was appointed Home Minister in April by President Gotabaya.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe will also announce his Cabinet on Friday, comprising members of the previous government.
Ahead of the swearing-in of the new Cabinet, a huge military contingent, along with police, raided Galle Face in Colombo, where anti-government protesters have peacefully agitated for over three months against the island nation’s grave economic crisis. The Galle Face area had converted into a tent city of resistance with banners like “Occupy Galle Face.”
The soldiers assaulted several protesters, the media reported, quoting eyewitnesses.
On Thursday, soon after he took the oath, President Wickremesinghe ordered the troops and police to clear the roadblocks and remove the anti-government protesters. The military crackdown came on the main agitation site amid an ongoing political tumult on the island after dramatic citizens’ protests on July 9 forced the unpopular Gotabaya to flee Sri Lanka.
The security forces arrested nine people aged between 26 and 58 years and injured several others as they evacuated the protesters staying in the Presidential Secretariat office, its main entrance, and around the offices in the Colombo Fort, Sri Lankan media reported.
The troops also surrounded the “Gota Go Gama” protest camp near the Presidential Palace and, in the allegedly ‘brutal’ action that followed, at least 50 protestors, including two journalists and two lawyers, were arrested and injured, the organizers claimed. Two of the protestors were hospitalized.
The troops and police arrived in trucks and buses around midnight, removing tents and blocking roads leading to the site. The overnight raid occurred even though protesters had announced they would vacate the site voluntarily.
The Sri Lanka Bar Association condemned the incident. “Using the Armed Forces to suppress civilian protests on the very first day in office of the new President is despicable and will have serious consequences on our country’s social, economic, and political stability,” it said in a statement.
