Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa left the country, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe took his place and declared a state of emergency. The protesters demanding a total change of the country’s administration did not care about the curfew and occupied the prime minister’s office building. It is feared that the protests will expand even further.
Colombo
Wednesday was a big day for the citizens of Sri Lanka.
Of course, it was expected in advance: the president accused of destroying Sri Lanka’s economy Gotabaya Rajapaksa had promised to officially resign on Wednesday. Rajapaksa made his promise after a huge number of protesters occupied the presidential palace last weekend and demanded the president’s resignation.
A military helicopter flew over protesters in Colombo.
In the morning, Sri Lanka woke up to the news that Rajapaksa had managed to escape the country and fly a military plane to the nearby island nation of the Maldives. The information about the resignation also came on Wednesday, although the official letter of resignation was still expected on Wednesday evening.
According to information from the news agency Reuters that came in the evening, Rajapaksa is expected to continue from the Maldives to Singapore.
Demonstrators also took over the Prime Minister’s office on Wednesday. People spent time in the front yard of the building.
The view from the window of the prime minister’s office occupied by protesters.
Swayed the president chose to flee because he was afraid of being arrested after he relinquishes power. As long as he remained president, the office protected him from criminal charges.
The prime minister replaced the extremely unpopular Gotabaya Rajapaksa as interim president Ranil Wickremesinghewhich is admittedly not more popular among Sri Lankan citizens.
Actually, the situation is almost the opposite: Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa were initially elected to power, but Wickremesinghe, who is closely related to them, became prime minister through purely political twists.
Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to resign as prime minister in the spring due to intensified protests, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as a “crisis prime minister” who would try to calm the situation in a country suffering from a historically bad economic crisis.
The protesters who occupied the building marched into the prime minister’s office.
At the weekend, Wickremesinghe also promised to resign as prime minister, but according to the Sri Lankan constitution, he could not do so at the same time as the president, because the prime minister automatically becomes the interim president when the president resigns. Sri Lanka’s parliament has announced that it will appoint a new president on July 20.
Pradeep Kumar, 30, was one of the protesters who broke into the Prime Minister’s office.
Now some of the protesters suspect that Wickremesinghe would still try to stay in power as president. The fear may be exaggerated, but during Wednesday he tried to tame the protests by all means. According to information received on Wednesday evening, he has requested that a new interim prime minister be appointed in his place.
A protester looked out of the window of the prime minister’s office occupied by protesters.
When news of Rajapaksa’s escape became public, the Prime Minister’s office declared a state of emergency in the country and a curfew in the western province. The main administrative city of the country, Colombo, belongs to the Western Province. On Wednesday evening, a nationwide curfew was announced until the next morning.
During the day, the curfew mostly remained a buzzword: the protesters who took over the streets of Colombo had no interest whatsoever in following Wickremesinghe’s orders.
The 29-year-old protester who called himself “Prince Charles” had taken part in occupying the prime minister’s office building. He said the office will remain in the hands of the citizens until Ranil Wickremesinghe steps down.
Instead right in the morning, a large group of protesters started marching to the prime minister’s office building, which had not yet been occupied – unlike many other government buildings.
The country’s army troops and police had been ordered to defend the building, and during the morning the police sprayed the protesters with tear gas. People who were there told HS that dozens of people would have been hospitalized.
Around the same time, a military helicopter appeared in the airspace above the main site of the protests in central Colombo, with soldiers pointing machine gun-like weapons at the crowd from its open door.
The soldiers defending the prime minister’s office stood idly outside the walls of the building after giving up the defense of the office.
Protesters responded to the helicopter flying by shouting insults at it and waving Sri Lankan flags. Nothing like this has been seen before during protests, locals said. People believed that it was an attempt by the retreating regime to scare people off the streets with its formal show of force.
Ruwan Chinthaka, 35, was holding the first gas canisters that had been thrown at the protesters. He said that during the months-long protests, people learned how to prevent the release of tear gas from gas cylinders.
Prime Minister’s Office the defense lasted about five hours. Around three o’clock in the afternoon, people took over the building, and the authorities gave up defending the building.
Most of the soldiers and police moved outside the building, where they stood looking idle. A small group of soldiers remained inside the building, but there they mainly directed the citizens who entered the building to move in the right direction.
Outside the office there was a downright boisterous atmosphere. The people who passed through the “alley of honor” formed by the demonstrators into the building were wildly applauded. Both inside and outside the office, people mockingly shouted Wickremesinghe’s first name.
The demonstrations have also claimed human lives. In the “Gota go” village, there is a memorial with photos of deceased persons.
In the evening, people walked along the main street by the sea, while the group leading the demonstrations continued to declare their demands on the steps of the old parliament building.
The big ones amidst the changes, there has also been concern among protesters about how far the demonstrations can continue – or whether they have already gone too far.
The concern is that taking over government buildings one by one could eventually lead to violent clashes between citizens and authorities. This reflection is supported by Wickremesinghe’s announcement in his TV speech on Wednesday that the army must “return control to the country”.
People line up for cookies and tea.
Chamath Madhu, 34, and Nalaka Narammala, 34, distributed tea and biscuits to people at the food tent of the ‘Gota Go’ village.
A possibility is that the army gathers its forces and counterattacks. If the uncontrollable protests get worse, there could be a slide towards anarchy at worst.
The Association of Sri Lankan Legal Scholars said on Wednesday night that it was very concerned about the takeover of the Prime Minister’s office and called on the crowd to leave the building. According to the association, the most important thing is to make room for a peaceful change of power, which the country’s administration has promised will happen.
At the same time, the protests are expanding. According to local reports, a crowd gathered around the current parliament building on Wednesday evening. The authorities are there to protect the building. Due to the unstable security situation, HS could not attend.
On Wednesday, at the prime minister’s office, some of the protesters threatened that the current parliament building would be taken over next.
There were many curious people outside the occupied prime minister’s office.
#Sri #Lanka #big #day #President #fled #country #people #defied #orders #Prime #Ministers #office
