It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 01, 2022
Russian Retreat from Chernobyl Opens Door
for IAEA Monitors
Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- International nuclear monitors are preparing to return to the stricken Chernobyl nuclear power plant -- site of the deadly 1986 meltdown -- as soon as Russian troops complete their withdrawal and Ukrainian operators take back control.
International Atomic Energy Agency monitors will be on the ground “very soon,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said at a press briefing in Vienna. The Argentine diplomat returned Friday from a week-long trip to Ukraine and Russia, where he worked out separate deals to boost the safety and security of nuclear sites amid a military conflict now in its second month.
“This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction,” Grossi said of the Russia withdrawal from Chernobyl. “The plant has to be operated by its own natural operators.”
In the absence of international oversight, a war of words has erupted between Ukrainian and Russian nuclear-safety officials over radiation risks at Chernobyl. Russians who began leaving the plant got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Friday. Moscow’s IAEA envoy reported Thursday that Ukraine workers at the plant sabotaged transmission lines used to monitor radiation safety.
Grossi said that radiation levels around the plant were normal and that the IAEA hasn’t seen any evidence that Russian troops received dangerous doses. Heavy vehicles kicking up dust as they exit could temporarily trigger higher measurements, as they did when Russia troops first arrived in February, he said.
The 2,600 square kilometer (1,000 square mile) Chernobyl exclusion zone contains long-lived radioactive material that will take thousands of years to decay. It also houses a nuclear-waste facility, where spent fuel from Ukraine’s reactors is encased for safe, long-term storage.
Nuclear authorities have been warning for weeks that the relative risks at Chernobyl are low -- compared to the dangers of bullets, bombs and the threats to functioning nuclear power plants -- but that the site of the deadly accident continues to stoke a visceral reaction among people. Russia’s retreat from the site provides new ammunition in the information war that’s run parallel to the armed conflict now in its second month.
“It has been a bit laborious for us to establish facts,” Grossi said. “If our people are there, it goes much faster.”
The more immediate radiation concerns in Ukraine are located at the country’s 15 other reactors which are operating in a war zone. Vadim Chumak, head of the external exposure dosimetry lab at Ukraine’s National Research Center for Radiation Medicine, told MIT Technology Review this week that he’s more concerned by the risk posed by Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the southeast of the country.
“In Zaporizhzhia they have six reactors, plus spent fuel storage,” he said. “If there was any damage to the spent fuel assemblies stored at Zaporizhzhia, it could result in an enormous radiological emergency, comparable to what happened in Chernobyl.”
The IAEA’s agreement with Ukraine and Russia includes a “rapid assistance mechanism” that could be triggered in the event of an accident and will allow monitors on site to “assess and assist almost immediately.” The agency will also deliver personal-protection gear, radiation-detection equipment to authorities, Grossi said.
Ukraine crisis: Reports of poisoning among Russians
Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby casts doubt on the reports that Russian
soldiers had suffered radiation sickness
Victoria Kim | Published 02.04.22
As Russian troops pulled out of Ukraine’s shuttered Chernobyl nuclear plant five weeks after seizing it, an international nuclear watchdog agency is looking into reports that some of the soldiers are experiencing radiation poisoning.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, was scheduled to speak at a news conference afternoon at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna after meeting with senior government officials from Ukraine and Russia.
Russian troops left the plant and the nearby city of Slavutych on Thursday, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-run energy company. Three convoys of soldiers who left the site were headed north toward Belarus, the IAEA said in a statement.
The agency said it was working to confirm local news media reports that Russian soldiers were leaving the site because some had been exposed to high levels of radiation there.
The agency also said it would send experts and safety and security supplies to Ukraine to ensure safety at Chernobyl, where the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred in 1986.
A Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, cast doubt on the reports that Russian soliders had suffered radiation sickness, saying in a news conference on Thursday that “at this early stage” the troop movement appeared to be “a piece of this larger effort to refit and resupply and not necessarily done because of health hazards or some sort of emergency or a crisis at Chernobyl”.
Russia seized the decommissioned plant early in its invasion of Ukraine, raisingconcerns about radiation levels and safeguarding at the site, where spent fuel still requires round-the-clock maintenance.
Some Russian troops were still in the “exclusion zone” around the Chernobyl nuclear power station on Friday morning, a day after ending their occupation of the plant itself, a Ukrainian official said.
A long-delayed measure intended to increase staffing at nursing homes in New York state took effect on April 1. It requires facilities to have enough employees to spend a specified minimum amount of time per day with each resident.
The reform was passed as a part of the state budget last year and had been scheduled to take effect on January 1. Governor Kathy Hochul repeatedly delayed its implementation, however, citing the ongoing pandemic and the shortage of health care workers as excuses. Her ultimate change of mind may appear to be a victory for nursing home workers, but the reform will do little to improve their working conditions. Nor will it improve care for the state’s elderly and vulnerable patients.
Understaffing has long hobbled New York’s nursing homes. It is a deliberate policy that companies pursue to reduce their payroll costs and increase their profits. The companies use inadequate staffing as an excuse to pressure nurses to work double and even triple shifts to compensate. As a result, nurses are not able to provide adequate care to their patients.
May Nast arrives for dinner at RiverWalk, an independent senior housing facility, in New York, April 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
The twin stresses of inadequate staffing and overburdened health care workers have reduced patients’ quality of life and resulted in preventable deaths. The coronavirus-related mortality among residents of New York’s nursing homes became a national scandal in 2020, and the magnitude of the negligence recently became clearer. In March, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit that found that the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo had undercounted the number of pandemic-related deaths by at least 4,100.
The pandemic only exacerbated the already harmful consequences of understaffing at nursing homes. More than two-thirds of the state’s 401 for-profit facilities have the lowest possible staffing ratings given by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to a 2021 report by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The report found that nursing homes with low CMS staffing ratings at the start of the pandemic had higher COVID-19 fatality rates. This finding likely results at least partly from the fact that administrators pressured sick employees to report to work—and even to work multiple consecutive shifts—instead of quarantining themselves.
Furthermore, the report found that New York’s reimbursement model for nursing homes gives owners of for-profit facilities an incentive to transfer facility funds to owners and investors, instead of investing in additional staffing to care for residents.
Instead of waging a genuine fight against dangerous understaffing, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) has held a series of rallies, the primary purpose of which has been to allow nurses to let off steam. The union has coupled this tactic with appeals to Democratic politicians for reforms. But the Democratic Party is no less beholden to the health care industry and its Wall Street shareholders than the Republican Party is, and any reforms that it is pressured to enact are purely cosmetic.
The measures included in New York’s current budget are no exception. The Safe Staffing Act, which has just gone into effect, requires nursing homes to employ enough workers to give each resident 3.5 hours of direct care every day. This amount of time must include no less than 2.2 hours of care provided by certified nurse assistants and 1.1 hours for licensed practical nurses or registered nurses.
When the bill was passed last year, some advocates for nursing home residents criticized this requirement as inadequate. They pointed out that the law would allow nursing homes to use support staff, rather than registered nurses, to provide a portion of patient care hours.
In addition to the Safe Staffing Act, the budget requires nursing homes to spend at least 70 percent of their revenue on direct resident care. Moreover, it requires these facilities to dedicate at least 40 percent of revenue to resident-facing staffing, and this expenditure is included as part of the expenditure on resident care. Finally, the bill caps nursing home profits at 5 percent. These provisions also took effect on April 1.
New York is not the first state to require that health care facilities maintain a certain level of staffing. California has taken the most direct approach by limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse, depending on the unit in which he or she works. Under state law, a nurse in an operating room, for example, can be assigned no more than one patient, and a medical/surgical nurse no more than five.
But again and again, hospitals have found ways to avoid complying with this law. During the winter surge of the pandemic in December 2020, the state granted emergency waivers that allowed hospitals to exceed the maximum allowed numbers of patients assigned to nurses. These waivers placed unreasonable burdens on nurses and jeopardized patients’ safety. Although the waivers expired in February 2021, hospitals can still apply for them.
These standards were still being violated in August 2021. A hospital in Eureka, California, was triaging patients in the waiting room as though a mass casualty event were taking place, according to trauma nurse, Matt Miele. “To me, it seems like the lowest staffing levels that I’ve seen at the time we need it the most,” he told CalMatters. He often was assigned more than four patients, which exceeded the ratio mandated by the state.
To meet the new staffing standards, New York will have to hire 12,000 workers statewide, according to Sallie Williams, vice president of advancement at Heritage Ministries, a not-for-profit health care organization for the elderly, who spoke to Erie News Now. The staffing shortage is so severe that National Guard troops were deployed in December 2021 to assist New York nursing homes, and these troops will remain in place for at least 30 more days.
Throughout the pandemic, the number of nurses who have retired has increased sharply. In addition, many nurses have burned out and quit because of overwork, inadequate support and inhuman levels of stress. In short, the failure of the ruling class to prepare for and respond to the pandemic in a rational way has contributed to the acute staffing shortage that the state now faces.
Nurses will not be able to gain safe staffing ratios, better pay, reasonable workloads or protection against the pandemic if they remain confined within the trade unions and direct their appeals to the capitalist state. Winning these demands will require nurses to form rank-and-file committees that are independent of the trade unions. The ultimate aim of these committees must be to confront the profit system itself, which is the root of the crisis in the health care system.
Ethiopia says aid is on way to Tigray, rebels say no aid in sight
Tigray people of northern Ethiopia have been suffering due to lack of humanitarian aid access for months
Addis Getachew and Andrew Wasike |01.04.2022
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia / NAIROBI, Kenya
The Ethiopian government on Friday said that some 21 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid are on their way to Tigray, the northernmost regional state affected by 16 months of armed conflict.
Ethiopia said that the consignment has been made available by the UN’s World Food Program, according to local broadcaster FANA.
On March 24, the Ethiopian government announced a humanitarian truce in its war against the Tigray rebels to facilitate the free flow of emergency humanitarian aid into the region.
The government also said it would allow for the scaling up of humanitarian flights to Tigray from two a week to daily.
Tigray rebels say government still blocking aid
The Tigray rebels who are in charge of the northern area have denied the announcement by the government that it would allow the flow of international aid to them.
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed via its external office: "We are now in a fifth day since the 'truce' and no single aid truck came to Tigray. It is clear by each day that the deception is coordinated by the Addis regime. The world was quick to welcome the 'truce' but is now silent while there is huge troop buildup instead of aid."
The Tigray rebels and the government have been embroiled in an armed conflict since November 2020.
The TPLF have accused the Ethiopian government of foot-dragging in implementing the humanitarian truce it announced on March 24.
"… the Government of Tigray demands the provision of sufficient humanitarian assistance without any delay, and an end to the mendacious claims regarding the delivery of humanitarian aid into Tigray," read a statement released by the Tigray External Affairs Office.
The UN said the Tigray region "stands on the edge of a humanitarian disaster" with more than 40% of the region’s estimated 6 million people requiring emergency assistance due to the war.
The conflict spilled over to neighboring Amhara and Afar regional states, displacing hundreds of thousands and forcing 5 million people to depend on aid, according to aid groups' reports.
Thousands, mostly civilians, have been killed in the armed conflict, with the UN blaming both sides for the deaths.
U.S. investigators find evidence Russian oligarchs trying to evade sanctions -official
Author of the article: Luc Cohen and Sarah N. Lynch Publishing date:Apr 01, 2022 •
NEW YORK — U.S. prosecutors have found evidence that Russian oligarchs are trying to evade sanctions put in place to pressure Moscow to stop its invasion of Ukraine, the head of a new Justice Department task force said on Friday.
Andrew Adams, a veteran prosecutor tapped to lead the “KleptoCapture” task force established last month, told Reuters in an interview that in some cases, even oligarchs who have not yet had sanctions imposed on them are trying to move assets ahead of potential future sanctions.
But even as they try to hide yachts, planes or other mobile property in countries they believe to be secretive, Adams warned that oligarchs trying to evade sanctions are facing an “all-time high” level of international cooperation to track the ill-gotten gains of Russian elites.
“There are efforts afoot – some of them publicly reported – to move, for example, moveable property in the forms of yachts, airplanes … into jurisdictions where, I think, people have the perception that it would be more difficult to investigate and more difficult to freeze,” Adams said.
The task force’s goal is to put the finances of Russian oligarchs under strain in a bid to pressure President Vladimir Putin to cease his weeks-long assault on Ukraine.
The unit’s name is a play on the word “kleptocracy,” which refers to corrupted officials who misuse power to accumulate wealth. The task force includes prosecutors, investigators and analysts from multiple federal agencies.
The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions targeting Putin, many of his wealthy friends and dozens of Russian businesses and government agencies.
‘SHARED SENSE OF PURPOSE’
Tracing oligarchs’ assets is often difficult because they are hidden behind “layers of shell companies scattered around the globe,” Adams said.
U.S. prosecutors are receiving information from places previously thought to be safe havens, Adams said.
“Especially in the current context, and the current climate … the level of shared sense of purpose I think is at an all-time-high,” Adams said.
He declined to provide details of specific jurisdictions that have provided the task force with information, or to name specific people under investigation.
He said targeting assets located overseas was a major component of the unit’s work, adding that the United States has not been an attractive country for supporters of Putin’s government since around 2014 due to a series of sanctions over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
European countries have already found and detained the yachts of wealthy Russian businessmen.
Spain’s government temporarily seized the $140 million Superyacht Valerie, which has been linked to Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB officer who heads state conglomerate Rostec.
France last month detained a vessel belonging to Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, while Italy sequestered a yacht owned by Russian billionaire Andrew Igorevich Melnichenko.
The Justice Department said last month that information provided by U.S. law enforcement to foreign partners had contributed to multiple vessel seizures.
“The United States has not been a friendly place to be parking your money as an oligarch,” Adams said. “The most ostentatious, the most obvious sorts of assets are not in the United States.”
Adams cited a 2019 case in which U.S. authorities seized the Wise Honest, a North Korean cargo ship accused of making illicit coal shipments in violation of U.S. sanctions even though the vessel was initially located outside American waters, as a “playbook” for some of the task force’s future cases.
LONG LEGAL FIGHTS AHEAD
Adams said that criminal charges and asset seizure warrants could come in the “early days” of the unit, which was also prepared for lengthy legal battles by oligarchs seeking to prevent the United States from permanently confiscating their assets through civil forfeiture.
Those cases can allow the department to take ill-gotten property in cases where people are outside the country and cannot be extradited. Criminal forfeitures, meanwhile, can accompany an indictment against the property owner.
“We should anticipate that extremely well-heeled litigants will take things to court. We will be engaged in litigation that will take awhile,” Adams said.
The task force may also target banks, cryptocurrency exchanges or other financial institutions who help sanctions violators by turning a blind eye towards suspicious transactions.
Adams said many institutions had voluntarily provided information. “The cooperation from the private sector has been already frequent.” (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)
UPDATED
Sri Lanka declares state of emergency as protests spread
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa invokes tough laws amid protests over Sri Lanka’s deepening economic crisis. Sri Lankan soldiers walk past a bus burned by demonstrators at the top of the road of President Rajapaksa's residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka [Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters]
Published On 1 Apr 20221 Apr 2022
Sri Lanka’s president has declared a state of emergency, giving sweeping powers to security forces a day after hundreds tried to storm his house in anger over an unprecedented economic crisis.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa invoked the tough laws on Friday allowing the military to arrest and imprison suspects for long periods without trial as demonstrations calling for his resignation spread across the South Asian nation.
The emergency was declared for “protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community”, he said in a proclamation.
The nation of 22 million is facing severe shortages of essentials, sharp price rises and crippling power cuts in its most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948.
Police reimposed a nighttime curfew on Friday in the Western Province, which includes the capital Colombo, expanding the no-go zone from the previous night.
Earlier in the evening, dozens of rights activists carried handwritten placards and oil lamps in the capital while demonstrating at a busy intersection.
“Time to quit Rajapaksas,” said one placard. “No more corruption, go home Gota,” said another – referring to the president.
In the highland town of Nuwara Eliya, activists blocked the opening of a flower exhibition by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wife, Shiranthi, police said.
The southern towns of Galle, Matara and Moratuwa also saw anti-government protests, and similar demonstrations were reported in the northern and central regions. All held up traffic on main roads.
Thursday night’s unrest outside the president’s private home saw hundreds of people demand he step down.
People chanted “lunatic, lunatic, go home”, before police fired tear gas and used water cannons.
The crowd turned violent, setting ablaze two military buses, a police jeep, two patrol motorcycles and a three-wheeler. They also threw bricks at officers.
At least two protesters were wounded. Police said 53 protesters were arrested, but local media organisations said five news photographers were also held and tortured at a local police station, a charge the government said it will investigate.
‘Intelligence failure’
Two government ministers said a major intelligence failure had placed the lives of the president and his wife in danger on Thursday.
“Both the president and his wife were at their home when the protests were going on,” health minister Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters in Colombo, discounting earlier claims that they were away at the time.
“We had information of a demonstration, but nothing suggesting that it could turn violent. This is a major intelligence failure.”
Transport minister Dilum Amunugama said “terrorists” were behind the unrest.
Rajapaksa’s office said Friday that the protesters wanted to create an “Arab Spring” – a reference to anti-government protests in response to corruption and economic stagnation that gripped the Middle East more than 10 years ago.
One of the president’s brothers, Mahinda, serves as prime minister while the youngest, Basil, is finance minister. His eldest brother and nephew also hold cabinet positions.
Sri Lanka’s predicament has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which torpedoed tourism and remittances.
Many economists also say the crisis has been exacerbated by government mismanagement and years of accumulated borrowing.
Record inflation
The latest official data released on Friday showed inflation in Colombo hit 18.7 percent in March, the sixth consecutive monthly record. Food prices soared a record 30.1 percent.
Colombo imposed a broad ban on imports in March 2020 in a bid to save foreign currency needed to repay nearly $7bn this year to service its $51bn debt.
Diesel shortages have sparked outrage across Sri Lanka in recent days, causing protests at empty pumps.
The state electricity monopoly said it was enforcing a daily 13-hour power cut from Thursday – the longest ever – because it did not have diesel for generators.
Several state-run hospitals, facing shortages of life-saving medicines, have stopped routine surgeries.
The government has said it is seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund while asking for more loans from India and China.
Sri Lanka Financial Crisis: Violent Protests In Colombo Amid Power Cuts, Shortage Of Fuel And Food
PHOTO ESSAY
UPDATED: 01 APR 2022
Hundreds of Sri Lankans on Thursday night gathered outside the private residence of Sri Lankan president in a Colombo suburb to protest against their everyday hardships because of the country's ongoing worst financial crisis. Sri Lanka has an acute shortage of foreign exchange, which has led to a shortage of fuel and food. Prices of all commodities have increased. The country is also facing up to 13 hours of power cuts everyday as there is no fuel to burn to produce thermal power. Protesters on Thursday burnt military and police vehicles. Security personnel fired tear gas shells and water cannons to disperse the protesters. Dozens of people were arrested.
A Sri Lankan man shouts anti government slogans during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them.
Sri Lankans watch after setting a bus on fire during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lankan army soldiers secure surroundings around Sri Lankan president's private residence during a protest on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lankans watch clashes between protesters and security officers outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lankan police officers carry an injured officer during a protest out side Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Police uses water canon to disperse protesters during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lankan protestors riot outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them.
Protesters run to take cover as police uses tear gas shells to disperse them during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lankans shout anti government slogans after setting a bus on fire during a protest outside Sri Lankan president's private residence on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka police fired tear gas and a water canon to disperse several hundred people protesting near the private residence of the country’s president. The people had gathered Thursday to protest the economic hardships faced by them. Protestors shouted slogans condemning the long power cuts and shortages of essentials.
Sri Lanka Economic Crisis | AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena
Sri Lanka Warns Clashes at President’s Home Imperils Tourism
Asantha Sirimanne and Anusha Ondaatjie, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka’s government said the protesters’ violent clashes with police outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s home were a threat to the revival of the tourism sector, appealing for calm amid widespread anger over surging costs and power cuts stemming from a foreign exchange crisis.
“Today we have a big problem with foreign exchange. One solution is to get more tourists to come. I believe the opposition wants to create a crisis and stop tourists,” Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said in a media conference to address the clashes. “In about six to seven months, we think the forex problem will begin to be resolved.”
The government was counting on a restart of tourism to build up its foreign exchange reserves after two years of Covid lockdowns at home and disruptions to global leisure travel. The sector generally accounts for about 5% of the economy.
However, tensions are on the rise after protesters on late Thursday surged past the barricades surrounding Rajapaksa’s residence and pelted stones, prompting police to fire tear gas and water cannons. Local television channels and social media videos showed the crowd screaming “Go home Gota” and demanding the resignation of Rajapaksa and his family from government.
Rajapaksa’s elder brother Mahinda serves as prime minister while Basil, the youngest, holds the finance portfolio. The eldest Rajapaksa brother Chamal controls the agriculture ministry while nephew Namal is the sports minister. These family members enjoy two-thirds majority support in parliament while the opposition remains divided. National elections will be held in 2023 at the earliest.
Stock trading was halted for the day after the bluechip index plunged 10% Friday.
Nearly 50 people were injured and protesters set fire to an army bus near the president’s home, the Daily Mirror reported. A curfew was imposed in several areas of Colombo and its suburbs, which was later lifted on Friday.
The president has not publicly commented on the clashes near his home although his office said in a statement that an organized group of extremists were among the protesters. Many of those who turned violent were arrested by the police.
The cabinet ministers at the Friday media conference echoed these comments, blaming political extremists for the clashes. “The security forces had to act, they had to stop people from walking into the president’s house,” Heath Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.
Sri Lankans have taken to social media in recent days to criticize the Rajapaksa clan and call for people to gather in Colombo and the surrounding areas on Sunday afternoon to peacefully protest against the political situation in the country.
Rajapaksa’s government is grappling with debt obligations, limited foreign reserves and inflation which is the highest in Asia. People are queuing for hours for fuel and living with daily power cuts that stretch for more than half a day as supplies of diesel are running out and the government lacks the dollars to pay for shipments.
Sri Lanka Leader Ramps Up Spending in High-Risk Bid for Support
The government is seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund while asking for bilateral aid from countries including China, India and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka has raised interest rates, devalued the rupee and reduced stock-trading hours in a bid to preserve electricity and foreign currency.
Sri Lanka, whose trade deficit doubled to $1.1 billion in December, had about $2.3 billion of foreign-exchange reserves in February and faces a $1 billion dollar bond repayment in July.
The IMF last month said Sri Lanka faces a “clear solvency problem” due to unsustainable debt levels, as well as persistent fiscal and balance-of-payments shorts.
Sri Lanka lifts curfew after violent protests over economic crisis
Members of Socialist Youth Union shout slogans against the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in front of the President's secretariat during a protest against the worsening economic crisis. (Reuters)
Reuters, Colombo Published: 01 April ,2022
Police in Sri Lanka’s capital lifted a curfew on Friday after protests in which dozens of people were arrested and several policemen were hurt near the home of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over his handling of an economic crisis.
Hundreds of protesters gathered near Rajapaksa’s residence in a Colombo suburb late on Thursday before police dispersed them with tear gas and water cannons, a Reuters witness said.
“We have arrested 54 people over the unrest last night. Several vehicles belonging to the army and police were burnt by the protesters, including two buses, one police jeep and several motorcycles,” a police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Nihal Thalduwa, told Reuters.
The island nation of 22 million people is in the midst of its worst economic crisis in years with rolling blackouts for up to 13 hours a day because the government does not have enough foreign exchange to pay for fuel imports.
Five policemen were injured and in hospital, Thalduwa said, adding there were no reports of injuries among the protesters.
“The main issue Sri Lanka is facing is a forex shortage and protests of this nature will hurt tourism and have economic consequences,” Sri Lanka’s tourism minister Prasanna Ranatunge told a press conference on Friday.
“Our stance is that people have the right to protest but it should be constructive. What happened yesterday was the opposite.”
Streets in the capital were quiet on Friday morning. Police combed through the wreckage of two burnt-out buses near Rajapaksa’s home, a Reuters witness said.
Trading on the country’s stock market was suspended for the third day in a row after the main blue-chip index fell 10 percent from the previous close.
Curfew in Sri Lanka as protesters try to storm president’s house
Police impose overnight curfew in parts of the capital as protests against a dire economic crisis turn violent.
Demonstrators react after a bus parked at the top the road to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's residence is set on fire [Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters]
Colombo, Sri Lanka – Police in Sri Lanka have arrested dozens of people and imposed an overnight curfew in the country’s capital after hundreds of protesters tried to storm President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s private residence amid widespread anger over a worsening economic crisis.
At least 45 people were detained in Colombo’s Mirihana district on Thursday night, the police said in a statement, branding the protesters as “organised extremists” trying to “create anarchy in the country”.
Some of those arrested “carried iron bars, sticks and sharp weapons” and tried to incite protesters to storm the president’s residence, it added.
Earlier on Thursday evening, Al Jazeera witnessed hundreds of protesters in Mirihana throwing stones and clashing with police as they pushed through the first line of barricades blocking the road to Rajapaksa’s home.
The police responded with tear gas and water cannon as the crowds chanted “Go home Gota, go home!” and “Gota is a dictator”.
Videos from the protest site, posted by the News Wire outlet on Facebook, later showed a police bus on fire and protesters tending to a man with a bloodied face. Police later said two military buses and a four-wheel drive were set ablaze.
It was not clear if the president was at his residence at the time.
A spokesperson for the police declined to comment.
Police disperse demonstrators near Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence [Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters]A demonstrator throws a stone near Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence [Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters]
The calls for Rajapaksa’s resignation came as Sri Lanka struggles with an economic downturn sparked by a foreign exchange crisis that has left the government unable to pay for imports of fuel, food, medicine and other essentials. The shortages have resulted in daily rolling blackouts for up to 13 hours in the island nation of 22 million people, and led to some state-run hospitals suspending routine surgeries.
Sri Lanka has turned to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout and is also seeking financial help from China and India. Beijing and New Delhi are reportedly each considering offering $1.5bn in credit facilities, on top of loans worth billions of dollars requested by Rajapaksa’s government.
The protests on Thursday were the latest in a series of nightly demonstrations in Colombo’s suburbs over the past week. The gathering began peacefully, with hundreds of people rallying a few streets away from Rajapaksa’s home.
“We came to protest the unbearable cost of living, fuel shortages and electricity cuts,” said 26-year-old Ajith Perera, who spoke to Al Jazeera before the police cracked down. “The decision to come to the president’s house was spontaneous. We want the president, who has caused so much destruction, to go home.”
Mohamed Asri, a 21-year-old protester, told Al Jazeera he travelled to Mirihana from another Colombo district after seeing coverage of the protest on local television channels.
“The economy is so bad that we can hardly eat two meals a day,” he said. “Things were never this bad in my lifetime. Gota has to go.”
‘Everyone is angry’
After the Mirihana gathering devolved into violence, protests spread throughout the city, with demonstrators using burning logs to block the main highway from Colombo to Sri Lanka’s second-biggest city, Kandy.
“I am angry, everyone is angry,” said protester Saman Wanasinghe. “Who knows what will happen now? There will be protests all over.”
But police – who were deployed to the capital’s streets in force – quickly quelled the unrest and Colombo was calm by the early hours of Friday morning.
Analysts have said the economic crisis in Sri Lanka – which only emerged from a 26-year-long civil war in 2009 – stems from mismanagement by the Rajapaksa government during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite an ill-timed tax break that depleted government coffers and border closures that resulted in the disappearance of tourism revenues, the government delayed seeking IMF help, they said.
Amid the inaction, Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves dropped by 70 percent in two years, and annual inflation soared by up to 55 percent, according to some estimates.
Alan Keenan, a senior consultant at the International Crisis Group, said Thursday’s protest outside Rajapaksa’s house “was an unprecedented show of anger and defiance” against the president, who is feared by many, partly because he – as the former defence minister – spearheaded a bloody campaign that quashed a separatist rebellion by Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil minority.
The United Nations says Sri Lankan forces killed at least 40,000 Tamil civilians in the last days of the war, while rights groups also accuse Rajapaksa and his elder brother Mahinda, who was the president at the time, of overseeing a crackdown against those who opposed the military’s brutal tactics, including journalists and dissidents from the country’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority.
The Rajapaksas, who deny the allegations of rights abuses, lost power following an election in 2015 due to increased public anger about authoritarianism, nepotism and corruption. But they returned to power just four years later, with Gotabaya Rajapaksa winning the presidency after campaigning on a platform of improving security and tackling what he called “Muslim extremism” in the wake of a series of deadly ISIL-claimed attacks on churches and hotels in the country.
His brother Mahinda then became the prime minister. And their eldest brother was appointed agriculture minister while the youngest brother became the finance minister.
Keenan said Thursday’s protests indicated “a sea change in attitudes and willingness to take action” on the Sri Lankan public’s part.
But he cautioned that it was virtually impossible to remove Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as constitutional reforms in 2020 have given the president extraordinary powers while his party’s grip on parliament remained firm.
“With anger growing and inhibitions against violent protest falling away, the current situation is a very dangerous one, even as it contains potential seeds of democratic change,” Keenan said.
“Many fear the government could resort to violence – either directly or through a staged incident, perhaps designed to redirect popular anger against Muslims. Vigilance from influential governments and international bodies like the United Nations is thus essential.
Rathindra Kuruwita reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka, while Zaheena Rasheed reported and wrote from Male, Maldives.
