Sri Lanka: President Tweets as Mobs Burn 50+ Homes of Ruling Politicians

Burnt cars, torched by anti-government protesters, are pictured near Sri Lanka's former pr
ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images
Frances Martel

Local news outlets in Sri Lanka documented the destruction of over 50 homes and other properties belonging to government ministers and members of Parliament – including at least four tied to the ruling Rajapaksa family – between Monday night and Tuesday morning, a major escalation in violence in less than 24 hours after over a month of mostly peaceful protests.

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history – the product of overdependence on imports, poor monetary policy, outrageous government debt, and general mismanagement under the Rajapaksa family. Sri Lankans have faced extreme shortages for much of the year of basic goods like gasoline, food, and medicine. Hospitals have canceled the least urgent surgeries due to a lack of supplies and people have died while waiting on hours-long lines for gasoline. Daily power outrages are now routine in the country.

Mahinda Rajapaksa became president in 2005 and ended the 26-year-old civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, colloquially the “Tamil Tigers”), giving him enormous political leverage that he used to put dozens of Rajapaksa family members in government positions. His brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is currently the nation’s president.

Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned from the prime ministership on Monday, hours before protesters burned down his home.

Sri Lanka’s News First documented the destruction of 53 homes and other property owned by Rajapaksas or members of the family’s political party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), overnight, including four homes owned by Rajapaksas. The destruction all occurred in the last 24 hours.

In addition to former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s home, protesters burned down the homes of two former Rajapaksa ministers – brothers Basil Rajapaksa, the former finance minister, and Chamal Rajapaksa, the former trade minister. The four, including President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, are part of a group of nine siblings.

Protesters also vandalized a monument to their father, D.A. Rajapaksa, and the ancestral family home.

The fires destroyed the homes or offices of 14 current or former government ministers, including the three Rajapaksas, and 27 members of Parliament, according to News First.

 The violence began on Monday afternoon when a group of SLPP supporters attacked a protest encampment known as “Occupy Galle Face,” named after the area across from the Presidential Secretariat.
Sri Lanka???s pro government Buddhist monk with others vandalise the camp of anti government protestors outside the president???s office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, May 9, 2022. Government supporters on Monday attacked protesters who have been camped outside the office of Sri Lanka's prime minster, as trade unions began a "Week of Protests" demanding the government change and its president to step down over the country's worst economic crisis in memory.(AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lanka: A pro-government Buddhist monk with others vandalize the camp of anti-government protestors outside the president’s office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, May 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

“Occupy Galle Face” was a haphazard set-up of tents and stands demanding Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation that had convened peacefully for about a month before Monday. The SLPP supporters burned down the tents, beat protesters with sticks, and prompted clashes that resulted in upwards of 100 hospitalizations.

The attacks, which police appeared to do little to stop, prompted outraged protesters to resort to violence and begin burning down homes and businesses linked with ruling party politicians. The Daily Mirror reported that protesters began to burn “buses which were used to bring goons to disrupt the peaceful protests at Galle Face Green.”

Colombo woke up littered with the burned-out shells of buses and government vehicles, some of them dumped into Beira Lake near Temple Trees, the official residence of the prime minister.

Men on a scooter ride past the burnt buses near Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's official residence 'Temple Trees', a day after they were torched by protesters in Colombo on May 10, 2022. - Five people were killed and more than 225 wounded in a wave of violence in Sri Lanka where the prime minister resigned after weeks of protests over the worsening economic crisis. (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

Men on a scooter ride past the burnt buses near Sri Lanka’s former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s official residence “Temple Trees,” a day after they were torched by protesters in Colombo on May 10, 2022. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT - People walk past a burnt bus near Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's official residence, a day after it was torched by protesters in Colombo on May 10, 2022. - Five people were killed and more than 225 wounded in a wave of violence in Sri Lanka where the prime minister resigned after weeks of protests over the worsening economic crisis. (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

People walk past a burnt bus near Sri Lanka’s former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s official residence, a day after it was torched by protesters in Colombo on May 10, 2022. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

Burnt cars, torched by anti-government protesters, are pictured near Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's official residence in Colombo on May 10, 2022. - Five people were killed and more than 225 wounded in a wave of violence in Sri Lanka where the prime minister resigned after weeks of protests over the worsening economic crisis. (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

Burnt cars, torched by anti-government protesters, are pictured near Sri Lanka’s former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s official residence in Colombo on May 10, 2022. (ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images)

Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family reportedly fled Temple Trees via helicopter on Tuesday morning as thousands of protesters surrounded it and attempted to burn it down. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s location remains unknown at press time, but protests erupted on Tuesday at the nearby Trincomalee Naval Base in response to rumors that the Rajapaksa family was hiding there.

According to News First, local hospitals confirmed 231 people hospitalized as of Tuesday morning in the SLPP supporter attack and the ensuing violence.

Local reports have documented at least four deaths in the past day, including SLPP Member of Parliament Amarakeerthi Athukorala. Athukorala reportedly died in a shootout with protesters where he shot and killed a 27-year-old unidentified man and then committed suicide after being surrounded by an angry mob.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has taken no meaningful action to calm the current chaos at press time. On Thursday, Rajapaksa posted a message on Twitter urging angry mobs to stop burning down property.

“All efforts will be made to restore political stability through consensus,” the president vowed.

Rajapaksa has ignored calls to resign and to arrest brother Mahinda, the official head of the SLPP, for the violent attack on “Occupy Galle Face.”

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