Analysis | How a powerful family destroyed a country

The first years of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s reign were marked by the brutal defeat of the long rebellion of the Tamil Tiger; In recent years, the populist semi-autocratic warrior king of the crown who at times appears to be strongly inclined to a majority nationalist policy aimed at gaining the approval of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka. The defeat in the 2015 presidential election seemed to signal a political setback for the Rajapaksa family, which returned to power following the deadly terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday 2019, campaigning against the alleged goodwill of national security.

Now, their reign may finally end. As an independent country, Sri Lanka is in the grip of the worst economic crisis. A-Digit’s woes – including rising inflation, rising government debt, and exhaustion of the currency line – mean the country has struggled to import essential goods as food and fuel prices have soared. last year. Power outages plunged a country of 22 million people into darkness. Lack of medicines and medical equipment has forced some humanitarian groups to confront the situation in Sri Lankan hospitals. humanitarian disaster.

After weeks of mass protests against his government and deadly street violence on Monday, Rajapak was forced to resign as prime minister. His surrender made him the fourth member of his family to give up a high-profile role within a month, after his brothers Basil and Shamal (now former finance and irrigation ministers) and son Namal (former minister). . Sport and youth). He draws attention to President Gotabaia Rajapaksa, the longest link in the long line of nepotism.

Days of mostly peaceful demonstrations across the country have drawn angry Sri Lanka from all walks of life.. They gathered at a famous beach known as Galle Face in Colombo and turned it into a beach. A kind of Tahrir Square in the Indian Ocean, a carnival of activism filled with tent fields, makeshift public libraries, health and food facilities. Their message was clear: they would only go after the Rajapaks left.

On Monday, pro-government supporters reportedly entered the city by bus from Rajapak and their allies violently attacked protesters in the Galle Place area and other parts of the capital. Colleagues said the attack “triggered a wave of furious retaliation”. Vigilantes took to the streets, chasing and beating up government supporters, building their own roadblocks and burning the homes of the Rajapaks and their allies. The former prime minister reportedly fled to a military base in the north-east of the country on Tuesday morning and was soon surrounded by angry citizens.

There is a restless mood in the country: Gotabaia is fighting for political support and calling for a united and protective government that many opposition members want to join as long as it remains in power. Sri Lankan negotiators plan to start negotiations with the International Monetary Fund this week. The country paid off its debts last month, to some extent the victim of global delays caused by both the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Analysts say the uncertainty surrounding the country’s leadership is hindering its chances of economic recovery. “The political situation must be resolved before anything happens,” Paikiasoti Saravanamutu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, told my colleagues. “We need a reliable government. Now the presidency has been poisoned by chacha.

Then there was the mismanagement of their economy. Even in peacetime the Rajapaks expanded their military finances and became involved in a kind of friendly capitalism that probably enriched the family fortune. They were protesting major China-funded infrastructure projects, including a port in their family’s hometown, Hambantota, which not only transformed them into bare white elephants, but also made Sri Lanka one of the world’s leading exhibits of this. It was happening. When the nation owes Beijing.

Critics argue that the roots of the current crisis predate the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. “Not a serious observer believed that the country could repay the $ 29 billion it owed over the next five years, or about $ 7 billion it owed that year. Wrote Amita Arudpragasam in foreign policy. However, the Sri Lankan government, full of Rajapaksa family members and loyalists, has supported Sinhalese Buddhist supremacists, interested capitalists, state media and some influential private media. “He kept burning his people with gas.”

The intensity and flexibility of the protest movement show that the gas lights no longer work. Organic growth and the scale of the protest have shown that the Rajapak are no longer the popular political family they once were. Written by the Sri Lankan journalist Dilunshi Handundeti. Wire for Indian online publishing. “In addition to requests for mass resignations, there were requests for judicial review, recovery of stolen assets and legal action against the Rajapaksas. People blamed the family for the island’s failure.

There is a troubling moment before us when the country struggles with both political dysfunction and profound economic pain. Sharika Tiranagama, an anthropologist at Stanika University, told me: “In Sri Lanka we were an extremely divided country, not in the simplest sense, but through decades of war, ethnic violence and profound persecution against each other.” She said she.

But he described the protest as a source of hope and solidarity. “This is what democratic mobilization could be like. “These people demand responsibility for corruption, they demand fundamental rights to dignity,” she said. “This is something that is very nutritious at a very bad time.”