Home ›› 15 Jul 2022 ›› Front
Sri Lanka’s anti-government demonstrators were in talks Thursday to hand back official buildings they seized, protest representatives said, even as they insisted the president and prime minister both quit in the face of an economic crisis.
Protesters overran President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s palace at the weekend, forcing him to flee to the Maldives on Wednesday, when activists also stormed the office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The premier, whom Rajapaksa named as acting president in his absence, has demanded the evacuation of state buildings and instructed security forces to do “what is necessary to restore order”.
A top Buddhist monk supporting the campaign called for the more than 200-years-old presidential palace to be handed back to authorities and ensure its valuable art and artefacts were preserved.
“This building is a national treasure and it should be protected,” monk Omalpe Sobitha told reporters. “There must be a proper audit and the property given back to the state.”
Hundreds of thousands have visited the compound since it was opened out to the public after Rajapaksa fled and his security guards backed down.
“There is a move to return the buildings back to the authorities,” an activist involved in the #GotaGoHome campaign told AFP.
In a televised address after thousands of people captured his office in Colombo, Wickremesinghe declared: “Those who go to my office want to stop me from discharging my responsibilities as acting president.
“We can’t allow fascists to take over. That is why I declared a nationwide emergency and a curfew,” he added.
The curfew was lifted at dawn on Thursday, but police said a soldier and a constable were injured in overnight clashes with protesters outside the national parliament.
The attempt on the legislature was beaten back, unlike at other locations where the protesters had spectacular success.
The main hospital in Colombo said about 85 people were admitted with injuries on Wednesday, with one man suffocating and dying after a tear gas attack at the premier’s office.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared a state of emergency in his role as the acting president, after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday, leading to more protests amid an economic crisis.
“The prime minister as acting president has declared a state of emergency (countrywide) and imposed a curfew in the western province,” Wickremesinghe’s media secretary, Dinouk Colombage, told Reuters. The curfew comes into effect immediately.
