Then, on Thursday – the fourth night – the protest turned violent. Furious protesters flew bricks and lit fires outside the private residence of Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Raczakaa, as the police used tear gas and water cannons to dissolve demonstrations. “People were obviously angry, they were shouting,” said Upol, who asked to be named only for fear of repercussions. “Earlier (this week) they asked the President to resign, (on Thursday) they shouted and shouted at him by name.” For weeks, Sri Lanka has been battling its worst economic crisis since the island nation gained its independence in 1948, leaving food, fuel, gas and medicine in short supply and pushing up the cost of basic goods. Stores were forced to close because refrigerators, air conditioners or fans could not operate, and soldiers were stationed at gas stations to calm customers, who lined up for hours in the heat to fill their tanks. Some people have even died while waiting. But Thursday night marked an escalation in Sri Lanka’s ongoing economic crisis. After the demonstrations, the police imposed a traffic ban and the President ordered a public emergency across the country, giving the authorities powers to keep people without warrant. On Saturday night, Sri Lanka announced a nationwide 36-hour curfew, effectively blocking Sunday’s planned protests – but the protests continued on Saturday. Meanwhile, the government is seeking financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is turning to regional powers that may be able to help. But there is anger in Sri Lanka – and experts warn that the situation is likely to get worse before it improves.

Days waiting in line

For weeks, life in Sri Lanka took hours – just to get the basic necessities of life.
“Our daily routine is limited to standing in line,” said Malkanthi Silva, 53, as she leaned against a worn blue gas cylinder in the heat of Colombo, where she waited for hours for the propane she needed to cook. feed her family. “When we need milk powder, there is a queue for it; if we need medicine, there is another queue for it.” Although the situation is now very acute, many years have passed. “30% is misfortune. 70% is mismanagement,” said Murtaza Jafferjee, president of the Colombo-based Advocata Institute think tank. In the last decade, he said, the Sri Lankan government had borrowed huge sums of money from foreign lenders and expanded public services. As government borrowing increased, the economy was hit hard by large monsoons that hit agricultural production in 2016 and 2017, followed by a constitutional crisis in 2018 and the deadly Easter bombings of 2019. In 2019, newly elected President Rajapaksa cut taxes in a bid to boost the economy. “They misdiagnosed the problem and felt they had to give a fiscal stimulus through tax cuts,” Jafferjee said.
But while President Rajapaksa was new to the role, he was not new to the government. As defense minister under his older brother, Rajapaksa oversaw a military operation in 2009 that ended a 26-year civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The United Nations launched an investigation last year into allegations of war crimes committed by both sides. After winning the presidential election, Rajapaksa appointed his brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as prime minister and took on dozens of government roles with servicemen or former military and intelligence services, according to the UN. Their younger brother, Basil Rajapaksa, was later appointed finance minister. In 2020, a pandemic struck, forcing the tourist-dependent Sri Lankan economy to shudder as the country closed its borders and imposed lockdowns and curfews. The government was left with a large deficit. Shanta Devarajan, a professor of international development at Georgetown University and a former chief economist at the World Bank, says tax cuts and financial woes have hit government revenues, forcing rating agencies to downgrade their creditworthiness to near-term levels. which means that the country has lost access to foreign markets. Sri Lanka has slashed its foreign exchange reserves to repay government debt, shrinking its reserves from $ 6.9 billion in 2018 to $ 2.2 billion this year, according to the IMF. The cash crisis affected imports of fuel and other commodities, and in February Sri Lanka imposed power outages to deal with the fuel crisis that had sent prices soaring, even before the global crisis that followed as Russia launched a unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Last month, the government ordered the Sri Lankan rupee, effectively devaluing it, causing the currency to fall against the US dollar. Jafertzi described the government’s moves as “a series of blunders after blunders”.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa told CNN on Saturday that the finance minister and his team are working around the clock to put the economy in the right place. He said it was wrong to say that the government mismanaged the economy – instead, Covid-19 was one of the causes.
Earlier, the President said he was trying to resolve it. “This crisis was not created by me,” Rajapaksa said in a speech to the nation last month.

Impossible situation

The evolving situation in Sri Lanka has made it incredibly difficult to make money – and even access to work can be a major barrier for some. Rixa driver, 35-year-old Thathara Sampath, needs fuel to work so he can feed his family. However, both fuel and food are available by coupon and prices are soaring – the cost of bread has more than doubled from 60 rupees ($ 0.20) to 125 rupees ($ 0.42), he said. Ajith Perera, a 44-year-old rickshaw driver, also told CNN he could not survive on portions of fuel. “With the two liters we take in, we can not make recruitments and earn a living,” Perera said with tears in his eyes. “Let me take care of my mother, my wife and my two children, I can not pay the installment for my taxi to the financial company,” he said. For many, it is an impossible situation – they can not afford not to work, but they also can not afford not to join long queues for basic goods. Kanthi Latha, 47, who sweeps the streets to make a living to feed her two young sons, says she quietly leaves work to join shorter food queues before returning in a hurry. “I can not afford to take leave, if I do I can lose my job,” said Latha. Before the financial crisis, Sivakala Rajeeswari says that her husband worked as a builder. But with the price of building materials rising, people are reluctant to take on even the most basic construction work, he said. Rajeeswari, 40, says she can still make a living by doing chores around people’s homes, but in recent days she has had no time to do anything but wait in line. “I did not have the opportunity to go and work anywhere,” he said. “When will this misery end?” Even middle-class people with savings are frustrated. Upul, the protester, earns a decent salary in a professional job, but says he still can not access the necessities he needs for his family. She has enough medication to treat daily headaches, aches and fevers at the moment, but worries she may run out. His family has turned to induction cooking to reduce gas usage, but frequent power outages make even work difficult. “Neither I, nor my family, nor any other person in Sri Lanka deserve this,” he said. “We have never been so poor, even with the money we saved and earned.”

What happens next

Sri Lanka is now seeking foreign aid to alleviate economic turmoil – the IMF, India and China. During his speech last month, President Rajapaksa said he had weighed the pros and cons of working with the IMF and decided to seek a bailout from the Washington-based institution – something his government was reluctant to do. . “We need to take action to cover this deficit and increase our foreign exchange reserves. To this end, we have started discussions with international financial institutions as well as with our friendly countries on the repayment of our loan installments,” he said. Rajapaksa on March 16. In a press conference on Thursday, IMF spokesman Jerry Rice told reporters: “The Sri Lankan authorities have expressed interest in an IMF-backed financing program. “We intend to start these discussions almost in the coming days, and this will include the expected visit of the Sri Lankan finance minister to Washington for our spring meetings in April.” Sri Lanka has also asked for help from China and India, with New Delhi already issuing a $ 1 billion credit line, wrote Indian Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaisankar on March 17. But that would be simply “pushing the box on the street,” said Jafferjee of the Advocata Institute. “This prolongs the crisis.” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Columbus-based Center for Policy Alternatives, worries that public frustration with the government could escalate. “Obviously it will have to get worse long before it improves,” said Saravanamuttu. “There is a lot of hatred and anger against the President and the cabinet. “Government lawmakers are afraid to confront voters.” There is still so much uncertainty about what will follow – national consumer price inflation has nearly tripled from 6.2% in September to 17.5% in February, according to the country’s central bank. “Commodity prices change daily,” Silva said as she lined up in Colombo. “The price of rice yesterday is not the price we will buy tomorrow.” Thursday’s protests – and developments since then – also raise the possibility of worse things to come. Upul, the protester, says he has protested on behalf of all Sri Lankans. But the new emergency rules make him worried. “I’ve taken…