On July 14, 2022, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker announced that he had accepted the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, sent by email from Singapore where he had fled via The Maldives.[1] That this former military commander – known as ‘the terminator’ due to his propensity to get critics assassinated[2] – was forced to resign by an overwhelmingly non-violent mass movement marks this as a major episode in Sri Lanka’s protracted democratic revolution.[3]
I feel the term ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ is confusing because it suggests that democracy is a gift from the bourgeoisie, is inseparable from capitalism and has nothing to do with socialism, whereas in fact most sections of the bourgeoisie have no interest in it and the Communist Manifesto states that ‘the first step in the revolution by the working class is… to win the battle of democracy’. Democracy – freedom from killings, torture and enforced disappearances, freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, equality of rights and opportunities, and the right of people to participate in making decisions that affect them – is won and defended only by struggles of working people in solidarity with one another. Furthermore, while a bourgeois revolution can be accomplished quickly, a democratic revolution may take decades and encounter serious setbacks.
The uprising in Sri Lanka, which started with a few small candle-light vigils in early March 2022 and developed into a full-scale revolution with protesters taking over the presidential palace and prime minister’s office, was triggered by critical shortages of food, fuel, cooking gas and medicines, accompanied by long power cuts and sky-rocketing prices. The protesters blamed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, including then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, for the catastrophe.[4] Demonstrations spread throughout the country, the most iconic location being ‘GotaGoGama’ at Galle Face Green in Colombo opposite the Presidential Secretariat. Criminal mismanagement by Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s regime (including tax cuts for the rich and a devastating blow to agriculture by banning inorganic fertilisers overnight) dealt the final blow to the economy, but the mountain of foreign debt had been growing for more than four decades after J.R. Jayawardene of the United National Party (UNP) won the elections of 1977 and introduced neoliberalism.
However, it is significant that although this is obviously an economic crisis, the demand that unified the aragalaya or struggle was ‘GotaGoHome’. Protesters were not demanding that Gotabaya provide them with what they needed; instead, they wanted him and his government gone, appealing to a higher form of democracy that includes the right to recall representatives who fail to carry out their mandate. This is the clearest indication that at the root of the economic collapse lies a political debacle.
An ultra-authoritarian state on one side, a divided electorate on the other
How could successive governments and especially the last one take such disastrous policy decisions without being prevented from doing so by the public? The short answer is that the state had assumed virtually absolute power while the public was so divided that any section which opposed a particular policy could be isolated and crushed. Dividing the electorate along ethno-religious lines has been the policy of the ruling class since Ceylon (as it was then) got independence from the British in 1948, and this in turn has allowed the executive to centralise enormous power in its hands.
In 1948 and 1949, the UNP government enacted legislation depriving around a million Tamils of more recent Indian origin (most of them super-exploited plantation workers in the central Hill-country) of their citizenship and franchise. Thus they isolated one section of working people and subjected them to discrimination, violence, and deprivation of their human rights. The policy has since been used against Sri Lanka Tamils (who have been inhabitants of the island for as long as the Sinhalese), Muslims, and occasionally even Sinhalese Christians. In each case, some members of the majority community – Sinhalese Buddhists – orchestrated the attacks, others mounted a strong defence of the victims, and many remained passive.
The Official Language Act introduced by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who came to power in 1956, accelerated this process. It made Sinhala the only official language, thus discriminating against Tamil speakers, especially in government employment. Peaceful protests against it were crushed by the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958. Sri Lanka Tamils being a much larger minority than Hill-country Tamils, the resulting sense of injustice, heightened when the SLFP led by Bandaranaike’s widow Sirimavo introduced a policy discriminating against Tamil students in university entrance, contributed to the slide towards civil war.
When J.R. Jayawardene came to power in 1977, he set up the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya (JSS), supposedly a union but more like a government-controlled paramilitary force. JSS gangs were used to intimidate and kill opposition supporters and judges who gave verdicts against UNP criminals. They were used repeatedly against workers and trade unions to break strikes, assault and kill trade unionists, and get members of existing unions dismissed. It was obvious that the JSS had protection from the very top because the police never acted against them, whereas around 80,000 public employees who opposed them and went on strike lost their jobs.
Starting just a month after the UNP took office, the JSS was used to assault and kill Tamils, loot and burn their shops and homes, and drive them out of the areas where they lived. In 1979, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and provisions of the Public Security Act were used as a cover for the torture, disappearance, and killing of thousands of Tamils by the state. Then in May 1981, violence broke out in Jaffna, and the targets of widespread arson attacks included the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts. This was followed by island-wide pogroms against Tamils, which were only over-shadowed by the even more gruesome massacres of 1983, which left thousands of Tamils dead and turned a simmering conflict into a civil war.
In 1978, J.R. Jayawardene introduced a new constitution which centralised almost absolute power in the hands of the Executive President, a post that he proceeded to occupy. Not only was parliament disempowered, but institutions that should be independent of the executive and ruling political party – like the Election Commission, Supreme Court and judiciary, National Police Commission, Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption, Human Rights Commission and Public Service Commission – also came under the control of the executive, with predictable consequences.
Given its obvious role as an assault on democracy, there has been a tug-of-war over the Executive Presidency since then.[5] The campaign to abolish it has been hamstrung by a Supreme Court opinion that this would need support from a two-thirds majority in parliament and a simple majority in a referendum, which has been difficult to achieve. Instead, under Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency (1994-2005), the 17th Amendment drastically reduced the powers of the president; then under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, the 18th Amendment (2010) repealed the 17th and scrapped the two-term limit on the presidency. When SLFP rebel Maithripala Sirisena became president and Ranil Wickremesinghe prime minister on the crest of a popular ‘Yahapalanaya’ (Good Governance) movement in 2015, the 19th Amendment again curtailed the powers of the president, but was promptly reversed after Gotabaya Rajapaksa, now in the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), a right-wing split from the SLFP, came to power in 2019 and the 20th Amendment was passed in 2020. A more authoritarian Executive Presidency is associated with more lethal assaults on human rights and democracy. It’s not surprising that a growing number of voices from the aragalaya are demanding its abolition.
As the civil war moved towards its terrible end in 2009, the UN estimates that around 40,000 civilians were killed, partly because the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used them as human shields but also because Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa directed government forces to bomb and shell civilian targets, including hospitals and safe zones.[6] With the LTTE defeated, a new enemy was found to rally the Sinhalese masses behind the Rajapaksas: Muslims. A number of state-sponsored Buddhist extremist groups appeared, the most prominent being the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS, Buddhist Power Force), led by Buddhist monk Galagodatte Gnanasara Thero. His ultra-nationalist rhetoric projected Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist country invaded by aliens, above all Muslims; he threatened them with annihilation and incited mob violence against them in a series of attacks in which arson and murder were used to drive Muslims from their homes and businesses. At the same time, Sinhala media and the police demonised Muslims. Mohamed Shafi, a highly-regarded gynaecologist, was charged with sterilising 4000 Sinhalese women without their consent, and was held in jail even after a CID investigation concluded the charge was not true. Other charges were even more bizarre. Muslim eateries were accused of putting a substance in the food of Sinhalese men that would make them infertile, leading to calls for a boycott.[7] The BBS linked up with Ashin Wirathu’s viciously anti-Muslim group 696 in Myanmar, and with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India.[8]
These attempts to portray Muslims as an existential threat to the Sinhalese didn’t work, although hostility to Muslims was certainly generated. This is when things became very murky. When the Yahapalanaya government came to power in 2015, it arrested and jailed Gnanasara for six years. But as early as 2016, Sirisena started drifting back to the Rajapaksa camp, granted Gnanasara a presidential pardon and set him free. His other interventions in the criminal justice system had fatal consequences. On Easter Sunday 2019, a series of bomb blasts in churches and hotels killed 268 people and injured hundreds more. It soon became known that the Indian intelligence agency had warned the government about these attacks beforehand, leaving many Sri Lankans wondering why pre-emptive action had not been taken.
Sri Lanka’s Easter Tragedy: When the Deep State Gets Out of Its Depth by Rajan Hoole (Ravaya, 2019) sets out to answer this question. Back in 2004, Gotabaya had recruited hundreds of Muslims in the Eastern Province to fight against the LTTE. From October 2004 onwards, around 500 of these militants, who had been attracted to Wahhabism, started attacking Sufis, burning their meditation centre and hundreds of their homes and businesses and sending them fleeing. One militant, Zahran Hashim, set up the National Tawheed Jamaat (NTJ) and proclaimed support for ISIS. A Sufi delegation met government officials to complain about the violence they had suffered and warned that these militants had been radicalised, but no action was taken against them. On the contrary, anyone from law enforcement, criminal investigation or the judiciary who tried to bring them to book was transferred or victimised. This policy was continued after Sirisena rejoined the Rajapaksa camp. After the terrorist attack, it emerged that 30 NTJ members including Zahran Hashim were being bankrolled by the Rajapaksas as ‘informants’. Yet the attacks enabled Gotabaya to win the presidential election as the national security candidate and further militarise the state and society.[9] This doesn’t mean that the Rajapaksas organised the terror attacks, but they – and Sirisena – knew the attacks were being planned and did nothing to stop them. In September 2022, a Sri Lankan court named Sirisena as a suspect in the case and directed him to appear in court in October,[10] but this ignores the fact that he was acting at the behest of Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
These pernicious divisions among ordinary working people on one side and centralisation of power on the other allowed the state to violate the human and democratic rights of everyone, including Sinhalese Buddhists. There are many examples of this, including the assassination of Sinhalese critics and sacking of tens of thousands of workers in 1980, but the most spectacular example is the UNP’s crackdown on the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) uprising of 1987-1989. This included most of the same measures used against Tamils, like subjecting Sinhalese civilians to arbitrary arrest, prolonged incarceration without being tried or even charged, torture (often resulting in death), and enforced disappearances. The main difference was that mass murder was suffered not from bombing and shelling but by being hacked to death, burned on tyre-pyres, buried in mass graves or dismembered and dumped by the roadside or in rivers. An estimated 60,000 Sinhalese were killed in this conflict, including around 6,000 by the JVP; some of those killed by state security forces were JVP combatants but the vast majority were non-combatants.
Opposing state authoritarianism and ethnic supremacism
The LTTE and JVP fought against the Sri Lankan state, but the alternatives they offered were no less authoritarian and ethnic supremacist. The LTTE consolidated its dominant position by exterminating members of other Tamil militant groups, and its goal was a Tamil-supremacist state. It started by killing and driving out Sinhalese from the Northern and Eastern provinces which it claimed as its territory, and later did the same to Tamil-speaking Muslims. Its supreme leader V. Prabhakaran aspired to totalitarian control over Tamil Eelam, and ruthlessly exterminated Tamil dissidents. There were tens of thousands of such victims, some of whom were tortured before being killed. One of the best known is Rajani Thiranagama, a socialist, feminist, doctor, lecturer, writer and human rights defender, who challenged the nationalism, militarism and macho authoritarianism of the LTTE and their forcible conscription of child soldiers.[11] Other dissidents were forced into exile.
Similarly, the JVP headed by Rohana Wijeweera, who called himself a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ and ‘modern Bolshevik’,[12] had a strong Sinhala-supremacist streak. Its five education classes included one characterising Hill-country Tamil plantation workers as tools of Indian expansionism, which was an abysmal failure of class analysis, apart from expressing racist prejudice. It opposed the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, which included recognition of Sri Lanka as a multi-ethnic country, equality for the Tamil language, and devolution of power to the provinces, all of which offered a modicum of redress to the grievances of Tamils. It was also extremely authoritarian. Threatening to kill people if they didn’t go on strike or boycott elections was not exactly the promotion of democracy required for moving towards socialism. The modern JVP has renounced violence and abandoned its anti-Tamil racism, but without an adequate critique of its earlier politics.
This brings us to the role of democracy activists, both party and non-party, in the democratic revolution. They were at the forefront of the struggle against British colonialism. Ponnambalam Arunachalam argued for universal franchise which would include the plantation workers, and a welfare state with free education. At the founding meeting of the Ceylon Workers’ Federation in 1920, he called for unionised labour to protect the interests of workers.[13] After Arunachalam died in 1924, his vision was pursued by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP, formed in 1935) and the Communist Party of Ceylon, later the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL), which fought for independence and against the legislation depriving Hill-country Tamils of their citizenship and franchise. They organised a successful nation-wide hartal (civil disobedience and general strike) against the withdrawal of the highly-subsidised rice ration in 1953, and opposed the Sinhala Only Bill put forward by the SLFP.
Yet these parties entered into an alliance with the SLFP in 1964, and in 1968 formed a United Front with it which came to power in 1970. In 1972, Colvin R. de Silva of the LSSP presided over the drafting of a republican constitution which enshrined Sinhala as the sole official language and gave a special place to Buddhism.[14] Principled members split off, and in many cases the new parties split again. What possessed these left parties to take such a suicidal step? LSSP theoretician Hector Abhayawardhana’s opinion that the SLFP victory in 1956 represented Sri Lanka’s ‘belated national liberation’ gives us a clue.[15] The UNP, wedded to the West, was seen as prolonging colonialism, whereas the SLFP’s policies of nationalisation, import substitution and hostility to the West were seen as ‘anti-imperialist’ and ‘anti-capitalist’, despite their simultaneous attack on equality and democracy. The same pseudo-anti-imperialist, pseudo-socialist politics of the leaders of the LSSP, CPSL and Democratic Left Front (DLF, formed out of successive splits from the LSSP) ensured that they continued to support the Rajapaksas in the last presidential and parliamentary elections, thus sharing responsibility for the ongoing catastrophe.
The irony is that with Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation, the SLPP has appointed UNP leader Wickremesinghe – who failed to win his own seat and whose party was wiped out in the 2020 parliamentary elections – as their new president. His first actions on coming to power were to declare an emergency and unleash the police, army and Special Task Force paramilitaries in a ‘shameful, brutal assault on peaceful protesters,’ as Amnesty International described it.[16] Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s return to Sri Lanka on 3 September 2022 demonstrates Wickremesinghe’s role as his proxy. This is not surprising. Wickremesinghe and Gotabaya have been partners in crimes against humanity during the pre-1994 period of the civil war and the anti-JVP counter-insurgency, when as a member of the government and an army commander respectively they were responsible for massacres of Tamils and Sinhalese; they have also both been responsible for Sri Lanka’s loss of tens of millions of dollars.[17]
As the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice observed, since Ranil Wickremesinghe took oath as the President of Sri Lanka, the crackdown on student union leaders, activists, artists, and several citizen protesters who were involved in the Aragalaya people’s struggle has intensified. More than 3,300 activists are reported to have been arrested with around 1,250 still in custody. Ignoring its own promise of a moratorium on the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Government has used it to detain student leaders.
Parliament passed an interim Budget introducing severe austerity measures and privatisation of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The Value-Added Tax (VAT) was amended from 12% to 15% while inflation of essential items reached unimaginable levels. A Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) was reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support the country’s economic policies with a $ 2.9 billion 48-month arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) provided there is an agreement with the country’s creditors on loan restructuring. The policy recommendations include strict austerity measures with little relief for the people. Although it refers to raising social spending, it is within a framework of cash transfers and targeted support which is inadequate to address the crisis. Repeated demands by women’s groups for universal social security, particularly during an economic crisis, were ignored. The harsh anti-people programme of the interim Budget and the insensitivity of the IMF means that the burden falls on women, the working people, and the poor in Sri Lanka.[18] Not surprisingly, hunger still reigns supreme and is likely to get worse, with fuel shortages making farming, fishing and other occupations unviable, although power cuts are shorter due to the monsoon feeding into hydroelectric power.[19] The most heart-breaking stories come from the war-ravaged North, where Tamil breadwinners have not only been killed or disappeared in the war but survivors have lost their land and limbs.[20]
Given the bankruptcy of the old left parties, with only small groups like the United Left Front adhering to the agenda of carrying out a democratic revolution, the role of non-party human rights and democracy activists and groups is all the more important. From the 1970s onwards, they have worked with exemplary courage in extremely repressive circumstances.
Moving forward
Healing divisions between working people of different communities and combating authoritarianism are preconditions for solving the economic crisis. The celebration of Sinhalese and Tamil New Year together, other communities participating in breaking the Ramadan fast along with Muslims, and the first commemoration in the south of Tamils killed in the war are positive developments, but democracy activists need to push them much further. The unusually high profile of women and young people in the protests is also a hopeful sign.
As a Sinhala-speaking half-Tamil whose family in a Colombo suburb was displaced by the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958, my reading of the so-called ‘ethnic conflict,’ which I investigated in my oral history Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? and explored further in my novel Playing Lions and Tigers, is more complex than most views. My own experience and interviews testified to strong bonds of friendship and solidarity between people from different ethnic communities, with numerous stories of Sinhalese saving the lives of Tamil friends, neighbours and even total strangers during anti-Tamil pogroms.
There have certainly been Sinhala-supremacists, including Buddhist monk groups, organising violent attacks on Tamils and Muslims with the complicity of the state, but I attribute much of the support they have received to the language divide created by Sinhala Only. The decline of English as a link language and the inability to communicate across linguistic communities, combined with tight censorship and relentless propaganda via Sinhala media and schools, resulted in ignorance among large sections of the Sinhalese public about the discrimination, violation of civil rights, displacement, incarceration, torture and mass killings suffered by Tamils. It was easy to blame the civil war of 1983-2009 entirely on the LTTE without acknowledging the terrible injustices suffered by Tamils. Yet when their own experience clashed with what they had been told – as occurred during the anti-JVP counter-insurgency – many Sinhalese were willing to re-examine their beliefs.
This moment, when state security forces are once again inflicting violence on Sinhalese activists, is a good opportunity to raise these issues. Many Tamils feel uncomfortable in a movement that ignores their concerns; but for their own sake too, Sinhalese who voted for the Rajapaksas despite knowing that they had looted the country when they were previously in power, who voted for mass murderer Gotabaya as a knee-jerk reaction to the Easter bombings, need to understand that voting for Sinhala supremacist authoritarianism can lead to disaster for themselves.
On the other side, Tamils who say that this movement doesn’t concern them also need to look inwards. Since it is patently absurd to argue that Tamils don’t suffer from the prevailing shortages, power cuts and inflation, the subtext of such a claim is that Tamils don’t belong in Sri Lanka but in a separate state. This Tamil nationalist position is advocated precisely by those who stifle criticism of the LTTE’s terror attacks against Sinhalese civilians including children, their massacres of Muslims in the East and ethnic cleansing of Muslims from the North, their torture and murder of Tamil dissidents, and the barbaric cruelty of tearing Tamil children from their parents and sending them to their deaths on the battlefield. The more nuanced position of Rajan Hoole and Kopalasingham Sritharan of University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) argues that Tamils must engage positively with the aragalaya, combating ‘both Sinhala chauvinism and narrow Tamil nationalism’.[21]
The appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as president demonstrates the impossibility of political reform under the existing parliament. New elections will have to be held and a new constitution enacted. There have been suggestions for the formation of a People’s Council, or multiple People’s Councils which elect delegates to an apex federation, with the dual responsibilities of alleviating the sufferings of their constituencies and forging a new constitution.[22] Such a body, backed by a general strike to bring down the existing government, could organise the election of a new parliament, campaign against the SLPP and its allies including Tamil, Muslim and left parties,[23] and put forward their proposals for a new constitution to be upheld by other candidates. These should include abolition of the executive presidency, demilitarisation, and devolution of power to the provincial and local levels.
Solving the economic crisis is the biggest challenge for the aragalaya and any new government. Only a few voices have called for a suspension of foreign debt repayment, an audit of the foreign debt and cancellation of illegitimate debt, but this is absolutely necessary.[24] Transparency about the holders of securities is required; when an investment banker said he was ‘flabbergasted’ at the ‘amazing willingness’ of the Rajapaksas to pay their creditors despite being ‘bankrupt’,[25] it’s worth asking: are they among the offshore holders of Sri Lanka’s sovereign bonds? Others have suggested that a new government should not agree to austerity as a condition for future borrowing, given the overwhelming evidence of its negative effects;[26] it should impose a wealth tax, restrict imports to essential consumption goods and production inputs, install a public distribution system, defend state ownership of utilities and public services, and encourage producer cooperatives.[27]
By October 2022 it was clear that the counter-revolution had gained the upper hand. Some sections of the middle classes abandoned the struggle, hoping that Wickremesinghe and the IMF would rescue the economy. Trade unions, farmers and fishing communities, who had earlier supported the aragalaya, had been pushed on the defensive, trying to get jailed protesters released and the draconian PTA repealed.[28] It is also true that neither the opposition parties nor the vast majority of protesters would be able to give a clear answer to the question, ‘What is your alternative to the Wickremesinghe-IMF economic proposals?’ Socialist activists who do have answers need to disseminate their proposals widely among working people, who in turn would have to put pressure on opposition parties to adopt them.
The lead actors in this drama are the working people of Sri Lanka, but they cannot solve all their problems alone. Internationalist solidarity is necessary to support the aragalaya against the brutal repression it is facing,[29] extend humanitarian assistance without strings attached, and resolve the foreign debt crisis. On 6 October 2022 the UN Human Rights Council passed a strong resolution criticising Sri Lanka’s human rights violations, including the human rights impacts of the economic crisis, and recommending remedies.[30] Such action would also help numerous other countries facing similar crises.
(Talk given at the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism on 8 October 2022. The talk and discussion can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz653lhMTpA . Published in the delayed issue of the Indian Journal of Secularism, Vol.26 No.1, Apr–June 2022, pp. 35–51.)
[1] BBC News, ‘Sri Lanka political dynasty ends as Rajapaksa quits,’ 15 July 2022. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-62160227
[2] Colombo Telegraph, ‘From terminator to predator: Gota enters worldwide ranking of ‘Press Freedom Predators,’ 6 July 2021. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/from-terminator-to-predator-gota-enters-worldwide-ranking-of-press-freedom-predators/[3] B. Skanthakumar, ‘Sri Lanka’s crisis is endgame for Rajapaksas,’ International Viewpoint, 13 July 2022. https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7739
[4] Nimanthi
Rajasingham interviewed by Nagesh Rao, ‘Sri Lankan uprising: Struggles against
neoliberal austerity,’ Tempest, 2 June 2022. https://www.tempestmag.org/2022/06/sri-lankan-uprising-struggles-against-neoliberal-austerity/
[5] Don Manu, ‘Will the new constitution be worse than the known devil?’ The Sunday Times, 17 October 2021. https://www.sundaytimes.lk/211017/columns/will-the-new-constitution-be-worse-than-the-known-devil-458743.html
[6] Gulbin Sultana, ‘UN panel report on accountability in
Sri Lanka,’ IDSA Comments, 18 May 2011. https://idsa.in/idsacomments/UNPanelReportonAccountabilityinSriLanka_GulbinSultana_180511
[7] Amnesty International, ‘Eliminating intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief and the achievement of sustainable development goals in Sri Lanka,’ June 2020. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Religion/Submissions/CSOs/02.amnesty-international.pdf
[8] Shamsul Islam, ‘India and its neighbourhood: RSS
building a deadly alliance against Muslims and Christians,’ Hastakshep, 27
November 2014. https://www.hastakshep.com/old/india-its-neighbourhood-rss-building-a-deadly-alliance-against-muslims-christians/
[9] Rohini Hensman, ‘The inside story of Sri Lanka’s Easter attacks,’ Daily News, 10 October 2019. https://www.dailynews.lk/2019/10/10/tc/199357/inside-story-sri-lanka%E2%80%99s-easter-attacks See also Colombo Telegraph, ‘Easter bombings mastermind Zahran’s wife gives damning evidence at PCoI; suddenly tests Covid-19 positive,’ 11 November 2020. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/easter-bombings-mastermind-zahrans-wife-gives-damning-evidence-at-pcoi-suddenly-tests-covid-19-positive/
[10] Meera Srinivasan, ‘Sri Lanka Easter attacks:
Ex-president Maithripala Sirisena named suspect,’ The Hindu, 16
September 2022. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/court-names-sirisena-a-suspect-in-easter-attack-case/article65898850.ece
[11] University Teachers for Human Rights, ‘Dr. Rajani Thiranagama: Her contribution to University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR),’ 2 October 1989. https://uthr.org/Reports/Report3/Rajaniwork.htm#_Toc515857060
[12] Rohan
Wijeweera, ‘Speech before the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission,’ New Left
Review, I/84, March-April 1974. https://newleftreview.org/issues/i84/articles/rohan-wijeweera-speech-before-the-ceylon-criminal-justice-commission
[13] Rajan Hoole, ‘Statelessness and the vanishing of habeas corpus,’ Colombo Telegraph, 18 March 2022. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/statelessness-the-vanishing-of-habeas-corpus/
[14] Jayampathy
Wickramaratne, ‘The National Question: All about state power,’ Daily Mirror,
5 May 2014. https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/the-national-question-all-about-state-power-sp-18248235/172-46752
[15] Devaka Gunawardena, ‘The recurring struggle for independence,’ FT, 15 July 2022. https://www.ft.lk/columns/The-recurring-struggle-for-independence/4-737510
[16] Amnesty
International, ‘Sri Lanka: Shameful, brutal assault on peaceful protesters must
immediately stop,’ 22 July 2022. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/07/sri-lanka-shameful-brutal-assault-on-peaceful-protestors-must-immediately-stop/
[17] Shreen Saroor, ‘A betrayal of trust: On Gotabhaya’s candidacy and Shavendra’s promotion,’ Groundviews, 30 August 2019. https://groundviews.org/2019/08/30/a-betrayal-of-trust-on-gotabhayas-candidacy-and-shavendras-promotion/
[18] The Feminist Collective for Economic Justice, ‘Gender
watch: More suffering imposed in the name of economic stability,’ The
Morning, 25 September 2022. https://www.themorning.lk/gender-watch-more-suffering-imposed-in-the-name-of-stability/
[19] Andrew Fidel Fernando, ‘Hunger,’ FiftyTwo, 24 September 2022. https://fiftytwo.in/story/hunger/
[20] Al Jazeera, ‘War-ravaged Sri
Lankan Tamils suffer amid economic crisis,’ 19 September 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/9/19/photos-war-ravaged-sri-lankan-tamils-suffer-amid-economic-crisis
[21] Rajan Hoole and Kopalasingham Sritharan interviewed by Inmathi, ‘Sinhala hegemony, Tamil elitism at the root of Sri Lankan crisis,’ 11 July 2022. https://inmathi.com/2022/07/11/sinhala-majoritarianism-is-a-major-factor-in-sri-lankas-economic-crisis/57265/
[22] Hasini
Lecamwasam, ‘People’s Councils: More democracy, not less,’ The Island,
25 July 2022. https://island.lk/peoples-councils-more-democracy-not-less/
[23] Wikipedia, ‘2020 Sri Lankan parliamentary election.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Sri_Lankan_parliamentary_election
[24] Eric
Toussaint interviewed by Sushovan Dhar, ‘Sri Lanka: No agreement with the IMF!’
Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, 15 April 2022. http://cadtm.org/Sri-Lanka-No-agreement-with-the-IMF
[25] Tommy Stubbington and Benjamin Parkin, ‘Sri Lanka on brink of sovereign bond default, warn investors,’ Financial Times, 8 February 2022. https://www.ft.com/content/09e1159f-9c45-4379-b862-98cb5e30a4da
[26] Bhumika
Muchhala, ‘The IMF in debt restructuring, the resurgence of austerity, and the
urgency of fiscal justice,’ Social Scientists Association, 18 April
2022. http://ssalanka.org/imf-debt-restructuring-resurgence-austerity-urgency-fiscal-justice-bhumika-muchhala/
[27] Ahilan Kadirgamar, ‘Sri Lanka stares at bankruptcy or redemption,’ Daily Mirror, 18 April 2022. https://www.dailymirror.lk/print/opinion/Sri-Lanka-stares-at-bankruptcy-or-redemption/231-235115
[28] Ahilan Kadirgamar, ‘Class to the Fore,’ Daily
Mirror, 17 October 2022. https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Class-to-the-Fore/172-246900
[29] Ambika Satkunanathan, ‘Rule by Emergency: The default refuge of an authoritarian,’ The Morning, 24 July 2022. https://www.themorning.lk/rule-by-emergency-the-default-refuge-of-an-authoritarian/
[30] The Sunday Times, ‘Toughest-ever UNHRC resolution against Lanka,’ 18 September 2022. https://www.sundaytimes.lk/220918/columns/toughest-ever-unhrc-resolution-against-lanka-496095.html