Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - A spokesman for the parliament speaker said that Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave a letter o...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - A spokesman for the parliament speaker said that Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave a letter of resignation on Thursday, just hours after he fled to Singapore to avoid protests over an economic meltdown.
The news made people happy in Colombo, the country's commercial capital, where protesters gathered outside the presidential secretariat despite a curfew for the whole city.
At the Gota Go Gama protest site, which was named in fun after Rajapaksa's first name, people set off fireworks, shouted slogans, and danced wildly.
An activist named Damitha Abeyrathne said, "Today, the whole country will celebrate." "It's a huge win."
"We never thought we'd be able to get rid of them," she said, referring to the Rajapaksa family, which ran the South Asian country's government for 20 years.
Rajapaksa sent an email with his resignation late on Thursday. The speaker's spokesperson said that once the document was legally checked, Rajapaksa's resignation would be official on Friday.
A person who knows about the situation says that Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday and then took a Saudi Arabian airline flight to Singapore on Thursday.
Late on Thursday, the Maldives government confirmed that the country had given diplomatic clearance for a Sri Lanka Air Force plane that carried President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his wife on a transit stop.
A passenger on the flight who didn't want to be named told Reuters that Rajapaksa was met by a group of security guards and was seen leaving the airport VIP area in a convoy of black vehicles.
Staff on the flight told Reuters that the president was "quiet" and "friendly" and that he flew in business class with his wife and two bodyguards. He was wearing all black.
The foreign ministry of Singapore said that Rajapaksa had come to the country on a private trip and had not asked for or been given asylum.
Rajapaksa's decision on Wednesday to make his ally Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the acting president sparked more protests. Demonstrators stormed parliament and the premier's office, demanding that he quit, too.
"We want Ranil to go home," said Malik Perera, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver who took part in the protests outside of parliament on Thursday morning. "They sold the country. We want a good person to take over, but we won't stop fighting until that happens."
IMF talks were cut short.
Protests against the economic crisis have been going on for months. Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of people took over government buildings in Colombo. They blamed the Rajapaksa family and their supporters for high inflation, shortages of basic goods, and corruption.
Sri Lanka had started talking with the International Monetary Fund about a possible bailout loan, but the latest government chaos has stopped these talks.
Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the IMF, told reporters on Thursday that Fund staff were still in touch with technical-level government officials but hoped to get back to high-level talks "as soon as possible."
Early Thursday morning, regular Sri Lankans walked around the president's house, looking at the art collection, luxury cars, and swimming pool.
Terance Rodrigo, a 26-year-old student who said he had been in the compound since protesters took it over on Saturday, said, "The fight is not over."
"We have to change things for the better. People's problems are not being fixed by the government."
Thursday evening, protest organisers gave the president's and prime minister's homes back to the government.
"Now that the president is out of the country," Chameera Dedduwage, one of the organisers, told Reuters, "holding the captured places has lost its symbolic value."
After Wickremesinghe called some protesters "fascists" in a speech the night before, another organiser, Kalum Amaratunga, said a crackdown could be coming soon.
In an effort to stop more trouble, the government put a curfew in place in Colombo from noon (0630 GMT) on Thursday until early morning on Friday. Local media showed soldiers patrolling the streets of the city in armoured vehicles.
The military said that troops were allowed to use force to protect people and public property.
ONE DEAD AND 84 INJURED IN ACCIDENTS
Police said that during clashes between riot police and protesters on Wednesday near the parliament and prime minister's office, one person was killed and 84 others were hurt. People were calling for both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe to be removed from their positions.
The army said that protesters attacked and hurt two soldiers near parliament on Wednesday night, and that their weapons and magazines were taken.
Police said that the man who died was a 26-year-old protester who died after being hurt near the office of the premier.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former prime minister, and Basil Rajapaksa, the former finance minister, are both brothers of the president. Their lawyer told the Supreme Court that they would stay in the country until at least Friday.
They were responding to a petition from an anti-corruption group called Transparency International. The petition asked the Supreme Court to take action "against those responsible for the current economic crisis," which included Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, Ajith Cabraal, and S.R. Attygala.
On Tuesday, immigration officers stopped Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country by plane.
Parliament is expected to choose a new full-time president on July 20, and a top source from the ruling party told Reuters that Wickremesinghe was the party's first choice, though no decision had been made yet. The main leader of the opposition, Sajith Premadasa, who is the son of a former president, is their choice.
