Opinion |
It has been another long week in Sri Lanka. On Monday, May 9, a crowd emerged from the precinct of the Prime Minister’s official residence in Colombo and proceeded to attack two sites of protest, beating protesters, burning tents. The police showed little resistance — when they turned on their water cannons and fired tear gas, their action also served to decimate a protest ‘village’ that had been in place for a full month. In numbers, the protesters did not retaliate.
By evening, however, the Prime Minister had resigned and groups of angry vigilantes were attacking the buses on which the morning’s provocateurs had travelled; government supporters were variously stripped, beaten, pushed into a lake. Across the country, houses of government politicians were burnt, eerily empty. Journalists returning to their homes by bus, late at night, reported being confronted by angry groups who insisted they should not reach for recording devices and demanded to know if they were with the struggle or not.
