The ‘stray incident’ (?) involving rioting and arson outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Mirihana house should be an eye-opener for all stake-holders, starting and ending with the Nation. The situation can worsen with the sporadic protests across the nation that have been planned, supposedly as people’s protests, on Sunday, 3 April, and may get extended by will and/or wisdom, can have consequences that could become hard to revert for a political class, including most in the Opposition, who have lost touch with the ground very long ago.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has since proclaimed an emergency, under the Public Security Ordinance. This is the second time ‘emergency’ of some kind is being proclaimed over the continuing economic crisis, caused mainly by an unprecedentedly crippling forex shortage. The last time it was mostly a ‘food emergency’, when early signs of food shortage began emerging, to become what it is today. The ‘food emergency’ reportedly helped the government target hoarders and black-marketers. It was withdrawn when the situation eased relatively – but never to the original levels.
The President’s Media Division has since attributed the Mirihana incident, in which angry protestors broke the thin police barricades and set fire to an empty bus parked to deny them access to Gota’s house, to ‘extremist groups’. Details would be known when the government provides them to the courts, Parliament or the courts. For more read
