The Department of Meteorology announced that showers or thundershowers will occur at times in Western, Sabaragamuwa, and Central provinces, and in Galle and Matara districts.
Fairly heavy showers above 75mm may occur at some places in these areas. Several spells of showers will occur in Northern, North-central, and North-western provinces.
Winds speed can increase up to (40-50) kmph at times over the island, particularly in the Western slope of the Central hills, Northern, North-central, North-western, and Southern provinces.
My beautiful motherland, ravaged by invaders and damaged by internal conflict over the centuries, is now drowning in the depths of economic despair. There is no respite in sight for the people who are going through physical, emotional and financial distress at present. At this challenging moment in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, as a woman, I think it is important to talk about the courage, sacrifice and endurance of the women of my motherland.
My sisters, you watched your fathers, brothers and husbands lose their lives to senseless violence in the insurgencies of 1971 and 1989, the Black July of 1983, the violent three decade war orchestrated by selfish and greedy political forces that feared the unity of the common people and numerous episodes of state sponsored killings and abduction. Even in the face of so much loss, you hid your pain and fulfilled your duties towards your loved ones, educated and caring for your children and worked untiringly to fill the earnings void created by the untimely demise of the men in your families.
For decades we relied on the foreign earnings generated by sending you to slave away as housemaids in oil rich countries and watched on as your families were torn apart in the absence of a mother and you endured abuse and exploitation at the hands of your cruel masters. There was only sham concern from those in power when you returned home with horrific injuries or even worse, in sealed coffins. While this government should have borne the expenses of your safe repatriation during the pandemic, they only looted any remaining savings many of you had by letting their cronies charge you a king’s ransom for flights and quarantine.
When official foreign exchange inflows dwindled in the face of the Central Bank’s disastrous and unsustainable soft peg of Rs. 200 to 203 per dollar amid unprecedented growth in money supply at the hands of the crook who was governing the Central Bank at the time until their belated decision to float the rupee in March 2022, the authorities simply appropriated the blame for the entire situation on you by accusing you of using unofficial channels to remit your earnings instead of accepting the basic economic explanation for the fiasco (a price ceiling resulting in excess demand and the emergence of a black market), another example of the government’s strategy of blame shifting in their pathetic efforts to cling to power. Despite never appreciating your contribution and sacrifice, it took only about six months of diminished foreign remittances for the government to go bankrupt. Against this backdrop, the new Finance Minister, as soon as he assumed office last month, declared that sending dollars to Sri Lanka at this time is a bigger sacrifice than sending your child to war, a statement in very poor taste indeed that puts into perspective the sorrows of mothers who lost their sons to armed conflict.
Thousands of you spent the best years of your lives married to sewing machines at garment factories to generate 40% of the export earnings for our country. Yet, some shameless media outlets did not hesitate to taint your character and blame you for the spread of Covid-19 infections. At the same time, the sisters working in the estate sector continue to carry tea baskets on your backs to contribute towards 14% of the country’s export earnings in return for paltry wages and mediaeval working conditions while the men that you elect to represent you are busy building dynasties and filling their purses.
Throughout Covid-19 lockdowns, many of you struggled to feed your families when salaries were halved or put or hold or daily paid jobs went out of existence and lamented the nearly two years of education your children lost, while the more affluent of you who could afford smartphones and other devices, despite not having to worry too much about putting food on the table, still faced the added responsibility of supervising your children’s online learning while working from home.
When it comes to the wives and partners of corrupt politicians, in view of the suffering your men have inflicted upon ordinary people, I cannot bring myself to pity you; your daughters I do pity ever so slightly since they did not choose to be fathered by these men. Indeed, it is quite possible that you are never married these men willingly but were instead forced into these unions of power and ill-gotten wealth by your parents or due to other extenuating circumstances. Perhaps you are prevented from voicing your opinion within your domiciles and you have been rendered lifeless, reduced to mere androids whose only job is to bear children, smile and look pretty in public by these wicked, immoral men who have proven again and again that they are incapable of any emotions or humanity.
Coming back to the trials faced by the hardworking sisters of my country, the government continues to cripple ordinary citizens with taxes on essential food products, forcing you to forfeit your family’s nutrition and go hungry in order to feed your husbands and children; they make you stand in queues for hours to purchase overpriced and sub-standard fuel for vehicles and LP gas cylinders with a high risk of combustibility; and they continue to impose the accursed half days of power cuts that affect your daily lives so much and have forced your families to bear an inflation tax in the form of the skyrocketing cost of living.
Gross female tertiary enrolment is 27% as opposed to only 17% for men and 40.6% of students enrolled in tertiary STEM programs are women yet female representation in middle and senior management is 23% and we rank 116 out of 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. Despite having produced the world’s first female prime minister female representation in government sits at 5.33% a stark contrast to countries like India (14%), Pakistan (20%) and Nepal (33%); even the women that continue who survive in the foul political landscape are constantly plagued by sexual overtures and libel. Of course, the men in power would not risk women coming in and creating a political culture of humanity and accountability. Despite the numerous disadvantages you face, you continue to persevere, not only fulfilling the responsibilities towards your families but also towards wider society by being at the forefront of protests to oust this murderous, corrupt government.
Dear sisters, there is no easy way out of the present economic crisis. You will be hit with mass scale unemployment, further crippling taxes and curbed public services as the conditions imposed by the IMF and other institutions that step in to bail out Sri Lanka from the present debt crisis take effect over time. You will have to endure an extended period of pain and economic deprivation but throughout history you have demonstrated your ability to remain strong in the face of adversity and overcome the many curved balls thrown at you, so hang in there my dear sisters, for your courage and endurance creates hope for a better tomorrow.
HAMBANTOTA: An airport without planes, a revolving restaurant with no diners, a debt-laden seaport — Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has been exacerbated by Chinese-funded projects that stand as neglected monuments to government extravagance.
The South Asian island nation borrowed heavily to plug years of budget shortfalls and trade deficits, but squandered huge sums on ill-considered infrastructure projects that have further drained public finances.
It is now in the grip of its worst financial crisis since independence from Britain in 1948, with months of blackouts and acute shortages of food and fuel plaguing its 22 million people.
After weeks of largely peaceful protests demanding the government resign over its economic mismanagement, things turned violent Monday after pro-government supporters clashed with demonstrators, leaving five people dead and at least 225 wounded.
Many of the white-elephant projects that helped fuel the crisis now gather dust in Hambantota district, home of the powerful Rajapaksa clan, which used its political clout and billions in Chinese loans in a failed effort to turn the rural outpost into a major economic hub.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa — who commissioned many of the projects — announced his resignation Monday, the same day the anti-government protests turned violent.
But his younger brother Gotabaya remains president.
The centrepiece of the infrastructure drive was a deep seaport on the world’s busiest east-west shipping lane, which was meant to spur industrial activity.
Instead, it has haemorrhaged money from the moment it began operations.
“We were very hopeful when the projects were announced, and this area did get better,” Dinuka, a long-time resident of Hambantota, told AFP.
“But now it means nothing. That port is not ours and we are struggling to live.”
The Hambantota port was unable to service the $1.4 billion in Chinese loans rung up to finance its construction, losing $300 million in six years.
In 2017, a Chinese state-owned company was handed a 99-year lease for the seaport — a deal that sparked concerns across the region that Beijing had secured a strategic toehold in the Indian Ocean.
Overlooking the port is another Chinese-backed extravagance: a $15.5 million conference centre that has been largely unused since it opened.
Nearby is the Rajapaksa Airport, built with a $200 million loan from China, which is so sparingly used that at one point it was unable to cover its electricity bill.
In the capital Colombo, there is the Chinese-funded Port City project — an artificial 665-acre island set up with the aim of becoming a financial hub rivalling Dubai.
But critics have already sounded off on the project becoming a “hidden debt trap”.
Biggest bilateral lender – China is the government’s biggest bilateral lender and owns at least 10 percent of its $51 billion external debt.
But analysts believe the true number is substantially higher if loans to state-owned firms and Sri Lanka’s central bank are taken into account.
The borrowing contributed to Sri Lanka’s dire fiscal predicament, after years of taking loans to cover spiralling budget deficits and to finance the imported products needed to keep the island’s economy ticking over.
“Fiscal profligacy over many decades and weak governance… got us into trouble,” Murtaza Jafferjee, chairman of Sri Lanka’s Advocata Institute think tank, told AFP.
The economic woes weighed heavy after the coronavirus pandemic torpedoed vital revenue from tourism and remittances, leaving the import-dependent country unable to purchase essential goods from abroad.
‘China has done its best’ – Unable to service its growing debt burden, and with credit rating downgrades drying up sources of fresh loans on the international money market, Sri Lanka’s government last month announced a default on its foreign loan obligations.
It had sought to renegotiate its repayment schedule with China, but Beijing instead offered more bilateral loans to repay existing borrowings.
That proposal was scuttled by Sri Lanka’s appeal for help to the International Monetary Fund — a move that has aroused consternation as Chinese lenders will now likely need to take a haircut on their loans.
“China has done its best to help Sri Lanka not to default but sadly they went to the IMF and decided to default,” Chinese ambassador Qi Zhenhong told reporters last month.
For many Sri Lankans, the largely unused infrastructure projects have become potent symbols of the Rajapaksa clan’s mismanagement.
“We are neck-deep in loans already,” said Krishantha Kulatunga, owner of a small stationery store in Colombo.
Kulatunga’s business sits near the entrance to the Lotus Tower, a floral-shaped skyscraper bankrolled by Chinese funds.
The tower’s colourful glass facade dominates the capital’s skyline but its interior — and a planned revolving restaurant with panoramic views of the city — has never been opened to the public.
“What is the point of being proud of this tower if we are left begging for food?” asked Kulatunga.
Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police in Charge of the Western Province Deshabandu Tennakoon and his assistant officer of Police were assaulted by protesters in Navam Road, Colombo this (10) afternoon.
The SDIG who sustained minor injuries from the attack has shot into the sky and fled in his getaway.
(New York, May 10, 2022) – Clashes broke out in Sri Lanka on May 9, 2022 after government supporters attacked peaceful anti-government protest sites in Colombo, the capital, and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should uphold the right to peaceful protest, ensure that the security force response to public disorder is proportionate and rejects excessive force, and promptly investigate and appropriately prosecute acts of violence.
Several hundred people identifying themselves as supporters of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived by bus in Colombo on May 9 and advanced to the Galle Face Green, where protesters calling for the resignation of the government have been peacefully camped for several weeks. Witness accounts and video footage show government supporters attacking the protesters with clubs and other weapons and setting fire to tents. Hours later, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as prime minister.
“The attack on peaceful protesters by Sri Lankan government supporters has sparked a dangerous escalation, increasing the risk of further deadly violence and other abuses,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It is vitally important for the security forces to fully respect the right to peaceful assembly, and for those responsible for violence to be held to account.”
Kasumi Ranasinghe Arachchige, a protester who was at Galle Face Green when the attack occurred, said that police forces at the scene, which included a water cannon truck, “retreated” when government supporters attacked protesters with knives and sticks. “They [government supporters] started destroying everything,” she said, describing damage to tents and other facilities, including temporary showers and a small library. “It seemed as if they knew what and who to look for.”
In recent months, Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has provoked widespread protests calling for political reform and for the resignation of the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and his brother Mahinda, the prime minister. On April 1, President Rajapaksa imposed a state of emergency, lifting it five days later. The government reimposed a state of emergency on May 6 after police fired teargas and arrested students protesting near parliament, which was adjourned until May 17. Although the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, the police fatally shot a protester on April 19, and on several occasions have used teargas and water cannon against protesters. The authorities have made numerous arrests and repeatedly imposed curfews.
Following the attack on the protesters’ camp at the Galle Face Green, there were numerous violent incidents in Colombo and elsewhere in the country, including clashes between government supporters and anti-government protesters, and attacks on the property of ruling party politicians. In Nittambuwa, 50 kilometers from Colombo, police said that Amarakeerthi Athukorala, a government member of parliament, opened fire on protesters blocking his car, wounding one and killing another, then fatally shot himself.
Concerned governments and international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which are offering assistance to address the country’s economic crisis, should insist that the government respect fundamental freedoms, Human Rights Watch said.
The latest state of emergency was imposed on May 6, but the government did not immediately publish the emergency regulations laying out the special powers assumed. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Sri Lanka is a party, certain rights may be derogated, or restricted, under a state of emergency, while other rights, including the right to life and prohibition of torture, may not under any circumstances be limited. Any derogations must be limited and proportionate. Foreign governments, including the United States and Canada, as well as the European Union, have questioned President Rajapaksa’s decision to assume emergency powers.
Sri Lanka has a poor record under successive administrations of investigating and prosecuting countless grave violations of human rights. During a previous government between 2005 and 2010, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa, as well as other senior figures in the current administration, were implicated in the killing and enforced disappearance of journalists and political activists, and in numerous war crimes during the civil war that ended in May 2009.
“In recent weeks, thousands of Sri Lankans have peacefully protested against corruption and called for accountable governance and respect for human rights,” Ganguly said. “Pro-government supporters have responded to those calls with violence, which those in authority need to stop.”
The controversial mansion in Malwana presumed to be a property of Basil Rajapaksa has been attacked and set on fire, following the public rage instigated upon the brutal assault launched on peaceful protests in Colombo by a group of pro-government protesters 24 hours ago.
The mansion has been surrounded by a large crowd, reports add.
A large crowd has reportedly gathered near the Navy Camp in Trincomalee, upon learning the rumour that former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family members were hiding there.
As the people are staging a protest outside leading to an unrest, Police have been called in.
The Police are trying to disperse the protesters, reports add.
The Attorney General’s Department has instructed the Police to conduct investigations into the incidents that took place on May 09.
The peaceful assemblies of protest in Colombo were interfered by a large group of people in breach of the Constitution and the penal laws, the Office said.
The unlawful interference was seen to have been carried out in the form of physical assault of serious nature causing bodily injury to those who engaged in the exercise of their constitutional rights, it added, thereby urging the Police to conduct investigations into the said events.
