Addressing members of the ruling
coalition, the country’s energy minister, Udaya Gammanpila, defended a small
increase in fuel prices that was intended to address a critical shortage of
dollars the island nation needed to import fuel, medicine and other necessities. The president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and
his brother Mahinda, the prime minister, had come on board with the measure
after a year of discussion. But another member of the family — Basil, the
finance minister, one of five Rajapaksas in the Cabinet — had other ideas. Before the guests made their way to the
dance floor, Basil Rajapaksa rose to declare that Sri Lanka was not in fact
suffering from a foreign currency crisis, according to Gammanpila and another
person present. Criminals, he claimed, were funnelling dollars out of the
country’s banking system. Give him two weeks, he said, and he would fix it. He would not. Nearly a year later, Sri
Lanka lies in economic ruin, with basic food items scarce, hospitals out of
medicine and lines for fuel stretching for blocks as the country’s foreign
reserves all but run out. The wave of anger gripping the country is as much
about the family dynasty ruling Sri Lanka as it is about the economic disaster.
Once empowered by a triumphant Buddhist Sinhalese nationalism after a brutal
civil war, the Rajapaksas have been undone by what their own allies call
incompetence and denial. Now, that dynasty, which has dominated
the country for the greater part of two decades, is on the verge of an end,
with most of the family in hiding at a military base and only the president
clinging to power. The latest to go: Mahinda Rajapaksa, the patriarch and prime
minister, who was evacuated from his home Tuesday after setting off clashes
that left eight people dead across the country. Gammanpila said that the Rajapaksas —
especially Basil, a shadowy power broker before becoming finance minister —
should have seen the disaster coming. “Basil was not willing to accept the
fact that this financial crisis will lead to an economic crisis, and unless we
are going to solve it, that will lead to a political crisis,” he said. “He controlled everything,” Gammanpila
added, a sentiment repeated by other officials and diplomats, “and he knew
nothing.” That Sri Lanka was headed toward an economic
crash had become increasingly clear to analysts in recent years. They warned
that the country’s balance of payments and macroeconomic trends were out of
alignment. Over a period of decades, the small
island nation of 22 million people had built a bloated state sector, robust
social welfare programs that exceeded the country’s means, a large military and
an elaborate series of postwar construction projects. As economic growth
slowed, it kept borrowing to pay. The economic stress increased as pandemic
travel restrictions dried up tourism dollars. Then came a disastrous ban on
chemical fertilizers, as the Rajapaksa government pushed organic farming at a
time when climate change was already threatening harvests and food security. As it became clearer that the government
needed help from financial bodies like the International Monetary Fund, the
Rajapaksas dragged their feet. Used to easy loans from allies like China, they
were daunted by the strict expectations that come with such packages, officials
and diplomats said. The economic collapse engendered a
sustained protest movement. At the main protest site, along the scenic Galle
Face, which overlooks the Indian Ocean from the capital, Colombo, protesters
have increasingly addressed subjects that most ethnic-majority Sinhalese once
shied away from. Many have described the root of the
crisis as the impunity that the political and military elite enjoyed after a
civil war rife with accusations of crimes against Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils.
The war’s end initiated a majoritarian triumphalism, exploited by the
Rajapaksas, that concealed the deeper economic troubles and bypassed
reconciliation. Members of their own party say the
Rajapaksas, buoyed by war and ethnic nationalism, felt an entitlement that was all
the more glaring in the face of their weak governance. Among the protesters were VGN
Damayanthi, 45, and her husband, NP Wickramarathna. As the economy crashed, she
said, they lost their family business, a small takeaway restaurant that
employed 15 people, and sold their house. Now they are surviving on money from
selling their car. What worried them most was the future of
their three children, the oldest of whom will soon graduate with an IT degree. “A bit of this was because of COVID,”
she said, “but a large part of it was this family.” The protests against the Rajapaksas were
peaceful for weeks, and many demonstrators and analysts were surprised as the
president, who had been accused of abuses as defence secretary during the civil
war, responded with restraint. But the anger peaked Monday, when the
prime minister turned what was meant to be a concession to the protesters — his
resignation — into a conflagration that his brother is struggling to contain. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s supporters, bused to
his residence, walked out and attacked peaceful protesters who had camped there
for weeks through heat and monsoon downpours. The assault unleashed a wave of anger
and violence, with mobs torching dozens of homes belonging to members of the
ruling party. In Colombo, some supporters of the prime minister were forced to
jump into a lake and flee to safety on swan boats. “The president had watched it on
television,” said Nalaka Godahewa, a former Cabinet minister who was with
Gotabaya Rajapaksa when his brother’s supporters marched on the protesters. “When I entered, he was screaming on the
phone to the inspector general of the police — that why did you allow these
people to come in,” he said. “But by then the people had entered, so he ordered
him to use water cannons, rubber bullets, whatever force to chase them away.” Godahewa, whose home was also burned
down, said he remained at the president’s residence for much of the night as
anarchy took hold. At Temple Trees, the old colonial compound where the prime
minister lives, protesters broke the gates and forced their way in. The president was said to be furious: He
was working the phones to get the army to control a mess unleashed by his
brother, while also helping that same brother evacuate with his family. Officials and members of the ruling
party said in interviews that the episode was an indication of the rifts
between the two brothers and their circles. (Members of the Rajapaksa family,
as well as their official representatives, did not respond to requests for
comment.) Mahinda Rajapaksa, 76, a former
president described as increasingly enfeebled by those who have seen him in
recent months, felt sidelined by a younger brother he thought he had made
president. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president, 72, was trying to find his own
ground after realizing his brothers had taken advantage of his political
inexperience to introduce disastrous policies in his name. The prime minister’s supporters, said
Charitha Herath, a lawmaker from the governing party, “thought that they could
get rid of these protests and they could prove to the president that he was not
acting, but it backfired.” In the days since, the president has
tightened a curfew, ordering the security forces to shoot on sight to stop
vandalism and arson. In a televised address Wednesday, he condemned the assault
on the protesters and the violence that ensued, and promised to curtail his own
sweeping powers. He also announced a new prime minister, bringing back Ranil
Wickremesinghe for his sixth time on the job. Whether the president can hold on for
the remaining two years of his term may be determined by how far the military
goes in backing him. A former army colonel, he has protected
the military, shielding officers from war crime investigations and rewarding
loyalists with cushy civilian jobs. Hemasiri Fernando, a former defence
secretary, said that the military had calculated its own interests, and that
the economic crisis was too widespread, also affecting the families of those in
the military, for officers to blindly support the president despite the public
anger. “They understand the hardship, because
they are facing it too,” Fernando said. © 2022 The New York Times Company