It has been two days into an all –island curfew and Colombo is a ghost city. The occasional vehicle which passes by or the exercisers doing their routine workout blots a landscape which is otherwise in a slumber. The military stands at ease in some places.
At several places in the city are burnt out buses and luxury vehicles from the backlash of what must be the country’s worst civil disturbance in post– Independence history. Some say it was reminiscent of the race riots in 1983 but this time the context is different.
On Monday the 9th of May an estimated 6000 supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the prime minister at the time, gathered inside his official residence Temple Trees to pledge solidarity with him. The supporters had been bussed from out of Colombo in more than 20 buses. According to unconfirmed reports at least five of them had been provided by PavithraDevi Wanniarachchi, who was the Minister of Power and Energy, until the dissolution of the Cabinet of Ministers two weeks ago. After a series of rousing speeches by her and other frontline Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) members including Mahinda die hard Johnston Fernando, the supporters went on a rampage. Armed with metal rods and sticks, they first attacked and destroyed the MynaGoGama, the smaller themed GotaGoGama at Galle Face,before marching to the latter. Police resistance was lukewarm and the mob was able to break through a police human chain easily to reach GotaGoGama where they burnt tents and attacked peaceful protesters. The police deployed the riot control apparatus late, when the mobs were almost upon GotaGoGama and after they had attacked the Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa and MP EranWickremeratne who had rushed to the scene. The joke in Colombo is that the police used the water cannons to douse the fish in the nearby Indian ocean. The teargas was used sparingly unlike at other protests like the ones near parliament.
The backlash to the attack was fast and furious. It went on for hours and into the dawn which followed, disregarding the curfew which the government declared almost immediately the attacks started to take place. Groups of people were damaging and burning buses and SUVsthat government MPs and their supporters were travelling in. In some instances they were looking specifically for Johnston Fernando.
Nilanga is from Wellawaya but has come to Colombo to do paint work in an office close to the Piththala Junction where he is standing and watching a crowd trying to push a bus to the ground. ‘It was Mahinda Rajapakasa who started all this’, he says. ‘If he had resigned and left peacefully none of this would have happened’. The sentiment expressed by Nilangais a common one. The word from the street pins the blame for the violence squarely on Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Dozens of people who were identified as supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa were beatenand tied up. Many were thrown into the Beira Lake until they were rescued by the Navy. The evacuation went on late into the night while groups of people were standing by to beat the evacuees for their role in the violence against the protesters.
On the night the violence broke out, hundreds of people who had gathered at GotaGoGamadespite the destruction to it, walked to Temple Trees. Before long, the tall gates to the side of the main entrance on Galle Road were forced open although no one went beyond them into Temple Trees. The crowd then tried to charge at the main gates at Temple Trees while at the same time setting fire to the watch hut which burnt partially. Reports from the crowd confirmed that the vehicle which was set on fire inside Temple Trees was not their work because they had not gone beyond these gates either. Police used teargas liberally on the crowd outside Temple Trees and as the hours wore on late into the night, started firing into the air.
The carnage of the 9th of May led to the deaths of at least ten people and more than 200 injured. There are public calls especially for the arrest of Mahinda Rajapkasa, Johnston Fernando, Sanath Nishantha and Moratuwa Mayor Saman Lal Fernando for inciting violence. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son Yoshita Rajapaksa who left the country for Australia the day before the violence broke out, is allegedly one of the organiser’s of the violence.
By Wednesday evening at least six of the burnt and damaged buses had been brought to the Cinnamon Gardens Police station and were lined up outside. A policeman who was on duty said the buses will be produced as exhibits in court proceedings.
A cluster of battered and bruised buses lay on their side at the Thunmulla junction and a little beyond.
On Thursday after the curfew was lifted thescenes on the streets around the Beira Lake were surreal. Buses with only their burnt– out shell stood standing amid the mangled iron and debris. Curious passers– by were walking around them and taking photographs.
In the supermarkets in Colombo which took the sharp edge of the fallout, shelves were emptying fast as Colombites prepared to stock up for more days of curfew, albeit for a lesser number of hours.
But the shortages of domestic gas and fuel, which precipitated the protests which have been going on for weeks, continue.
At the Flower Road fuel station, a long line of vehicles winds its way for a couple of kilometers even though it is cordoned off and traffic cones block its entrance to indicate that there is no fuel. At the same fuel station, the queue for gas is also building up. Nesamma,who has been standing in the queue for hours says that for many days she has been carrying her gas cylinder and coming to stand in it. ‘I was in the queue on the 9th when the attacks happened. I picked up my cylinder and ran back to Slave Island where I live’.
Nesamma says she does not know when she will be able to get gas. ‘I have no other way to cook because there is no kerosene either. Some people have a small electric cooker but I don’t have one. Even if the electricity tariffs are high it would have been good to have one because I would have been able to feed the children at least’.
While standing in the queue Nesamma and her companions have just heard news of the potential appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new prime minister. They have little hope. ‘This must be another deal’, they say with a whimsical laugh. (SW)
