The Sri Lankan Protest in Rome for Democracy

Vittorio Square. Rome, 10 April 2022

 

Sri Lanka is facing, due to a currency crisis, the worst economic recession in decades that is driving the country into bankruptcy, with inflation soaring to the point of causing shortages of fuel and hours-long power cuts that have threatened to close down businesses.

In addition to this, there have been drastic tax cuts that depleted government revenues, a delay in seeking help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the aggravating circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic decimating Sri Lanka's key tourism sector: the country’s foreign reserves have plunged by more than 70 percent.

The anger that is mounting across the country is directed at Rajapaksa, 72 years old, who won the presidency in 2019 by a wide margin and whose party won a two-thirds majority in parliament less than a year later, thanks to which Rajapaksa was able to appoint his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister and to change the constitution to strengthen the president's powers; in addition, he has assigned key positions in his cabinet, including financial, agricultural and sports portfolios to members of his family.

The people felt deeply disappointed by the confidence they placed during the voting in Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa, especially after the series of ISIL-inspired attacks that killed at least 250 people in 2019; also because the brothers had overseen the military defeat of Tamil Separatists in 2009 after 26 years of bloody war: Mahinda was the president at the time and Gotabaya the defense secretary.

What fueled the protesters' anger was also the Rajapaksa government's refusal to listen to the concerns of the people, indeed, when people started taking to the streets in early March they were dismissed by the government as “terrorists”, even declaring a state of emergency and a curfew as protests escalated across the country, although he was then forced to cancel these extreme measures.

At Galle Face Green, on the Colombo waterfront, students, teachers, lawyers, actors, and architects sang for the first time together “Madman Gota” and “Go Home Gota”, referring to the president's nickname.

Since then, the Sri Lankan diaspora has also begun to gather in various cities to join the protest, from New York to Italy, simultaneously in major cities.

In Rome, the largest was organized on Sunday 10 April in Piazza Vittorio by the People's Liberation Front (JVP - Sri Lanka) Committee in Italy.

Their press release reports:

“From the so-called independence from Great Britain until today the bourgeois governments have not worked for the interests of the Sri Lankan people, but only for those of imperialism. So they always followed the advice of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, etc.

The result of these choices is that today socially, economically, and politically the country is in a disastrous situation: we are a nation that produces nothing, everything is imported, and we only have debts abroad. In fact, the bourgeois governments by contracting debts from abroad made useless projects, with which politicians made money by stealing, through commissions of thousands of dollars. We now have no foreign currency to pay off debts and import food, medicine, fuel, etc.

The current president and his family government came to power by exploiting racist propaganda against minorities. However, within two years, this government has shown its inability to solve the problems of the people.

For this reason, people are voluntarily taking to the streets to demand the resignation of the president and the corrupt government. Instead of listening to the people and solving people's problems, the government is cracking down on protesters and activists using a state of emergency and other repressive laws. They are threatening and attacking our comrades and workers in general.”

The protest was peaceful and with large participation, unfortunately in the complete disinterest of the local media.

But it's right not to leave in the shadows the fate of a country that is sinking into crisis, and that of its people who live and work in our cities.

 

 

Italian version