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print versionSri Lanka’s democratic revolution
The latest episode in a decades-long drama
by Rohini Hensman
[ . . . ] The uprising in Sri Lanka, which started with a few small candlelight vigils in early March 2022 and developed into a full-scale revolution with protesters taking over the presidential palace and prime minister’s office, was triggered by critical shortages of food, fuel, cooking gas, and medicines, accompanied by long power cuts and skyrocketing prices. As Nimanthi Rajasingham explains, the protesters blamed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, including then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, for the catastrophe. Demonstrations spread throughout the country, the most iconic location being “GotaGoGama” at Galle Face Green in Colombo opposite the Presidential Secretariat. She also points out that although criminal mismanagement by Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s regime dealt the final blow to the economy, the mountain of foreign debt had been growing for more than four decades after J.R. Jayawardene of the United National Party (UNP) won the elections of 1977 and introduced neoliberalism…
read full text here: https://www.tempestmag.org/2022/08/sri-lankas-democratic-revolution/
