Mastodawn

As you may or may not know, there's a political and an economic crisis going on in Sri Lanka. As a citizen, I believe it's my duty to open the world's eyes towards what's happening in this island.
The Rajapaksa family has been in power for two consecutive terms between 2005-2015. They lost power in the 2015 election and came to power again in 2019 and has been ruling ever since. Yes, the country is democratic in books, but what people witness here are shaded elements of dictatorship and nepotism. Without digressing much from the subject, let me summarize what happened to the country.

1. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa who held the presidency for two terms (2005-2015), considered to have lifted a lot of money (few billion USD) from government foreign reserves, international funds to the government (tsunami and war funds), bribes and commissions from FDIs.

2. It is believed that these stolen money were invested in foreign companies or deposited in offshore accounts.
Continued...

Show thread

Theshan Weerasinghe May 2, 2022

3. In both of his terms he murdered a lot of journalists, murdered a Rugby player because of a personal affair of his son Namal Rajapaksa, who is now a member of the parliament.
4. This is why people changed the government in 2015 and gave the power to the opposition. But, instead of charging them for crimes, they ignored all of that and continued ruling. In these times a lot of racial issues occured. Apparently that's how the Rajapaksas try to gain the majority power. Through racial division.
5. It climaxed when Easter bombings happened in 2019 killing more than 300 locals and foreigners in churches and hotels. They blamed it over ISIS because of the incident happened in NZ not long ago. However, a bigger power was at play and it was obvious for most of us as the presidential election was close.
6. As expected, in the end of 2019, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was elected as the president with 6.9 million votes because people feared of another terrorist attempt.
Continued...

Show thread

Theshan Weerasinghe May 2, 2022

7. As he came to power, he started ordering around people as to what and how to do things without even considering the advice of the experts. Somehow, people thought, this was the leader they needed. So, they voted to his party and his party could represent over 2/3rd of seats in the parliament.
8. Now that everything worked as they planned, Mahinda Rajapaksa was voted as the Prime Minister with the support of their majority.
9. They started their usual business of lifting money as they chose their beloved brother, Basil Rajapaksa to come to the parliament (without even being elected) and take the finance minister post.
10. Within just two years, all the foreign reserves vanished and the country fell into a debt crisis because they were taking commercial loans from China (mostly), India, Japan and a few other countries for high rates.

Show thread

Theshan Weerasinghe May 2, 2022

11. None of these countries are to be blamed for high rates as they were provided for projects that could make a good income to the country. But, the projects never happened and money was gone.
12. Now, as a country with more than 23 million people, people struggle to find the bare minimum of money and other goods.
13. We struggle to import gas, fuel, medicines and even food as we have no money to pay.