Sri Lanka has finally made your headlines, but what the media has made to look like extreme riots are in reality a series of peaceful protests encouraging the overturning of a military based dictatorship, which has been led by the Rajapaksa Family for decades and as of today (Friday 15th July 2022) Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation as President has been officially announced, the people have won and there’s never been a time to be more optimistic about the future of Sri Lanka.
Firstly I feel its important to summarise how we got here. When I arrived in Sri Lanka in 2010 the country had just come out of a 26 year civil war between the Sinhalese Army and Tigers of Tamil Eelam also known as LTTE or the Tamil Tigers. Also India got involved with their ‘Peacekeeping Force’ but that was a bit of a shambles which you can research. Essentially the Tamils (minority) wanted to create a separate state for their people, but the Sinhalese (majority) weren’t feeling it. Like Pakistan did with India, or Ireland vs Northern Ireland, basically imagine Cornwall wanting to be independent from the UK, then fighting for it for nearly thirty years.
During and after the war, Rajapaksa, who was the leader of the army, under his Brother Mahinda’s leadership who was President from 2005 to 2015, was seen as a hero in the eyes of the Sinhala-Buddhist community for freeing them from “terror”. In reality it was one of the bloodiest civil wars in history with reports of nearly 100,000 people dying of up to 40,000 being civilians and the United Nations released a report accusing the Rajapaksa’s of murdering thousands of civilians during the final phase of the conflict in 2009. Tamil Tigress is a great book with more info if you’re starting to get into this.
In 2019, the Army Leader became the President and made his brother the Prime Minister, which sounds mental to write, with overwhelming support from the people, despite the fact that he had been repeatedly accused of corruption, “white van abductions” where journalists and civil right activists “disappeared” and the said war crimes. He won 52% of the votes with the main argument from pro-Rajapaksa people being simply: “Sri Lanka needs a powerful and a strong leader”.
Then the Eastern bombings happened in 2019, followed by the Corona virus. Some questionable decisions were made on tax cuts, printing money, farmers were forced to switch to organic farming, as well as basic theft and the country is now bankrupt with no Foreign exchange reserves to buy petrol, gas and other basic needs and inflation is currently at a tear-jerking 54%, food going up 80%, transport 124%. People are now literally starving and can’t even get to work to earn their meagre salaries to feed themselves.
This mess became unbearable in March 2022 so the people started the peaceful protests. “You f*cked with a wrong generation”, became one of the slogans. Rajapaksa could have chosen to step down any time in the last four months. Instead, he made his brothers Mahinda and Basil resign, leaving the main demand of the people unmet and hung on to the sinking ship.
Then on the 9th of July, tens of thousands of people gathered in Colombo to protest the president, demonstrations were held in every single town throughout the country. The petrol’less people walked many miles to show their frustration. It genuinely raises the hairs on my arm thinking about it.
The night before, the president announced a police curfew that would restrict people from leaving their houses. A tactic he has used multiple times to stop protests but this made people even more angry and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) declared that a Police curfew of this type is “blatantly illegal”’.
This is when everything escalated and you saw the pictures and footage that made the international news.The message was ”We don’t move unless the president and everyone else resigns”’ and boom, the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has officially announced his resignation today on Friday 15th July 2022.
The people have won and the President has managed to achieve the most impressive thing imaginable that no other Sri Lankan leader has done before, also the complete opposite thing that he wanted when running the army. He has united all ethnic and religious groups of all classes into one movement that provides hope and a new beginning. Sri Lanka is now stronger than ever.
However there is still the whole bankruptcy thing, so what to do?
Well despite the UK Govs advice not to travel to Sri Lanka, tourists spending their well earned dollars, pounds and euros is currently the quickest and easiest way to bring food, gas, fuel and essentials to vulnerable Sri Lankan people. All the national parks are open and empty – this guy is is taking the few tourists on tours and seeing leopards and other exotic animals in abundance like never before. All cultural sites like Sigirya Rock, the ancient temples of Anuradhapura and the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy are open and of course the waves continue to roll in. If you’ve not had a Summer Holiday yet and like the idea of reeling empty right hand point breaks then get over to Arugam Bay ASAP.
We are more excited for our upcoming season kicking off in October, the vibe in the air is pure positivity and unity. If you can be a part of one of the most important times of Sri Lanka’s history just being being a tourist enjoying your holiday I strongly suggest you book the ticket and become a part of the movement.
Oh and please bring some wax.
See you in the line up 🙂