For more than three months, Eshan Dias has spent every night living in a makeshift canvas tent in central Colombo, the commercial capital of Sri Lanka. Due to the boiling heat, monsoon rains, and food and water shortages, he and hundreds of others refused to move from this Galle Face Green site, which became the movement’s challenging heart. anti-government calling for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Thursday night, a crowd roared into their tent. They had succeeded; Rajapaksa, who had already fled the country in the middle of the night on Wednesday, resigned. On Friday morning he was no longer officially president.
“It was so emotional, I just screamed and cried,” Dias said. “We have been living here for more than three months, fighting for political change. Demolishing Gotabaya is not the end of our struggle, we have a lot more to do to change this country, but it is a great victory. “
An anti-government slogan written on a window near the home of the president who fled to Singapore via the Maldives after months of anti-government protests. Photography: Chamila Karunarathne / EPA
The demise of President Rajapaksa’s regime, formerly seen as one of Asia’s most powerful strongmen, is unprecedented in Sri Lanka’s history. He is the first president to be ousted in the middle of his term by a mass uprising, and the scale and scope of the protests that overthrew him, spanning religions and ethnicities, are different from anything that has arisen before. in Sri Lanka, which remains totally divided. by ethnic lines.
Many see it not only as a defeat for the president but for the entire Rajapaksa family, which has been Sri Lanka’s most powerful political dynasty for two decades. President Rajapaksa, along with his brother Mahinda, who was president between 2005 and 2015 and then prime minister of this regime, Basil, who was finance minister, and several other Rajapaksa who held cabinet and secretary positions, they are collectively accused of bankrupting the country to concentrate power within their family ranks and then engage in widespread corruption, mismanagement of the economy, militarization of the government, and racist and divisive politics.
“The Rajapaksas were venal and corrupt, their regime has nothing to praise,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives.
Protesters take a selfie as they leave government buildings after military troops bolster security in parliament on July 14. Photo: Rafiq Maqbool / AP
“They got involved in public spending and vanity projects as if there was no tomorrow and brought their extended family to run the government. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was not a politician. He had no experience in government and therefore had a very limited vision of the country. They became the epitome of a decrepit system of government. “
The reign of the Rajapaksas began in 2005 when Mahinda, the most popular of the brothers, was elected president. He became a hero among the Sinhalese Buddhist majority to end the three-decade civil war with Tamil separatists, but he became a permanent enemy in the eyes of the Tamil minority because of the brutalities committed in the phases. end of the war. , where tens of thousands were killed, and even more disappeared as a result. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was secretary of defense and head of the armed forces, has been accused of war crimes and of being personally involved in the killings of journalists and the enforced disappearances and “kidnappings of white vans” of Tamils, activists and opposition politicians.
“The legacy of the Rajapaskas is one of crushing minorities, war crimes and crushing dissent, as well as the daylight theft of the people of Sri Lanka,” said Ruki Fernando, a human rights defender.
It was during the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime that widespread allegations of corruption began to emerge, related to large agreements with foreign companies, which left no one in the family intact. A 2007 confidential cable leaked to the WikiLeaks fund at the U.S. embassy in Colombo made a special mention of little brother Basil Rajapaksa who “has no close advisers and more enemies than friends in Sri Lanka because he has the habit of try to ‘buy people’. He earned the nickname ‘Mr. Ten Percent to demand a ten per cent commission for each project’.
Mahinda Rajapaksa lost the 2014 elections, in part due to allegations of corruption, but the family’s continued influence on politics was so powerful that all attempts to hold them responsible for corruption or war crimes were very few. .
Mahinda Rajapaksa (left) and her brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa greeting her supporters during a party convention held to announce Gotabaya’s presidential candidacy in 2019. Photo: Eranga Jayawardena / AP
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s electoral victory in November 2019 arose as a result of a wave of majority Sinhalese Buddhist ultranationalism that the Rajapaksa family was famous for fostering. In April of that year, Sri Lanka had suffered terrorist attacks at the hands of Islamist suicide bombers, and the family played with nationalism and fears for security, gaining 6.9 million votes, a large majority on an island of 22 million people. His brother Mahinda was appointed prime minister the following year.
However, a number of critical mistakes — from drastic tax cuts, reckless lending, a misguided ban on fertilizers, catastrophic mismanagement of the country’s finances, as well as accusations of continued widespread corruption by the family – caused Sri Lanka to face the worst economic crisis since. independence; and that would be what would be the loss of the Rajapaskas.
Most of those who started taking to the streets in April, initially to protest the shortage of fuel and food, were the Sinhalese Buddhist community who had voted in favor of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. However, as the protests grew, many described a political awakening that was consolidating in the country. The protesters went beyond demanding that the Rajapaksas resign and instead began calling for an end to the divisive and ultranationalist policy they had fostered for so long, as well as concrete changes to the constitution, including the abolition. total of the executive presidency.
“We are working for the change of an entire system, for political, social, economic, spiritual change and this is not over,” said Catholic priest Jeevantha Peiris, one of the prominent members of the clergy involved in the protests.
“In the last three months we have gone through tear gas attacks, surveillance, travel bans, death threats, some of our friends are in prison. But this is the first time in the history of Sri Lanka that all these different groups were able to dialogue together and that has been beautiful. “
Many of those camped at Galle Face Green say they will continue in their tents, although Gotabaya Rajapaksa has resigned as the work of holding the rest of his politicians accountable has not stopped. Deputies will have to elect a new president on July 20, and there is already controversy over the candidates who are likely to be nominated.
Encouraged by having overthrown a strong man president, many in the movement now have their hopes set on building a very different future for Sri Lanka.
“The deep-rooted problem in Sri Lanka goes beyond the Rajapaksas,” said Umeshi Rajeendra, artistic director of a dance company in Colombo. “Gotabaya’s resignation has not resolved the systematic oppression, militarization, economic crisis and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. His resignation is the first of many steps towards honest reflection, responsibility and, hopefully, a deep-rooted change.” .