COLOMBO — Tens of thousands marched on
beleaguered Sri Lankan President
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office on Saturday, in
the biggest protest to date over the country’s dire economic and political
crisis.
اضافة اعلان
Sri Lanka’s 22 million people have seen weeks of
power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel, and other essentials in the
country’s worst downturn since independence in 1948.
Saturday’s social-media organized protest drew the
largest numbers since the crisis blew up last month according to AFP reporters,
and pressure on Rajapaksa intensified further as the country’s powerful
business community also began withdrawing support for the president.
Men and women poured onto
Colombo’s seafront
promenade and laid siege to the colonial-era Presidential Secretariat, chanting
“Go home Gota” and waving the national lion flag.
Others carried handwritten placards that read “It’s
time for you to leave” and “enough is enough.”
Barricades blocked the entrance to the president’s
office with police in riot gear taking up positions inside the tightly guarded
compound.
“These are innocent people here. We are all
struggling to live. The government must go and allow a capable person to lead
the country,” one man told the crowd.
The protests appeared to be peaceful, but a police
official said teargas and water cannon were at the ready if needed. On Friday
security forces fired water cannon at demonstrating students.
Residents said there were widespread protests in the
suburbs of the capital too while the
Catholic and Anglican churches also
brought their followers onto the streets.
Sri Lanka’s business community, which largely funded
Rajapaksa’s election campaign, also appeared to ditch the president on
Saturday.
“The current political and economic impasse simply
cannot continue any further, we need a cabinet and interim government within a
week at most,” said Rohan Masakorala, head of Sri Lanka Association of
Manufacturers and Exporters of Rubber products.
His association joined 22 other business and
industry organizations, seeking a change of government, saying daily losses had
reached around $50 million due to the fuel shortage alone.
The head of the Catholic Church,
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith led a protest in the town of Negombo, just north of Colombo, urging
people to continue protesting till the Rajapaksa administration resigned.
“Everyone must get on the streets till the government leave,
these leaders must go. You must go. You have destroyed this country.”
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