Gas pipelines and scuffle: Sri Lanka faces humanitarian crisis OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
Chamila Nilanthi is tired of waiting. The 47-year-old mother of two queued for three days to get kerosene in the Sri Lankan city of Gampaha, northeast of the capital Colombo. Two weeks earlier, she stood in line for three days to cook on gas, but came home with none.
“I’m tired of it, exhausted,” she said. “I don’t know how long we have to do this.”
A few years ago, Sri Lanka’s economy grew strong enough to provide jobs and financial security for most. It is now in a state of collapse, dependent on aid from India and other countries, as leaders try desperately to negotiate a bailout plan with the International Monetary Fund.
What is happening in this South Asian island nation of 22 million people is worse than the usual financial crises in the developing world: it is a complete economic collapse, leaving ordinary people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities and causing political unrest and violence. caused .
“It’s moving really fast into a humanitarian crisis,” said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington.
Such disasters are more common in poorer countries, in sub-Saharan Africa or in war-torn Afghanistan. In middle-income countries like Sri Lanka, they’re rarer, but not unheard of: 6 million Venezuelans have fled their oil-rich homelands to escape a seemingly never-ending political crisis that has ravaged the economy.
Indonesia, once touted as an economy of the ‘Asian tiger’, faced deprivation at the level of the Depression in the late 1990s, sparking riots and political unrest, wiping out a strongman who ruled for three decades. been. The country is now a democracy and a member of the Group of 20 Largest Industrial Economies.
The crisis in Sri Lanka is largely the result of staggering economic mismanagement coupled with the effects of the pandemic, which, along with the 2019 terrorist attacks, devastated the key tourism industry. The COVID-19 crisis has also disrupted the flow of house payments from Sri Lankans working abroad.
The government took on huge debt and cut taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as COVID-19 hit. Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving it unable to pay for imports or defend its beleaguered currency, the rupee.
Ordinary Sri Lankans – especially the poor – pay the price. They wait days for gas and gasoline to boil – in lines that can be more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Sometimes, like Chamila Nilanthi, they go home with nothing.
Eleven people have died so far while waiting for gas. The latest was a 63-year-old man who was found dead in his vehicle on the outskirts of Colombo. Unable to get gas, some have given up driving and have resorted to bicycles or public transport to get around.
The government has closed urban schools and some universities and is giving officials three months off every Friday to save fuel and give them time to grow their own fruits and vegetables.
According to government data, food price inflation is at 57%, and 70% of Sri Lankan households surveyed by UNICEF last month reported cutting food consumption. Many families depend on government handouts and donations from charities and generous individuals.
Unable to find cooking gas, many Sri Lankans turn to kerosene stoves or cook over an open fire.
Affluent families can use electric induction ovens for cooking unless the power goes out. But most Sri Lankans can’t afford those stoves or higher electricity bills.
Sri Lankans furious over fuel shortages have staged protests, blocked roads and attacked police. Fights have broken out when some try to jump ahead in fuel lines. Police have attacked unruly crowds.
One night last week, a soldier was seen attacking a police officer at a gas station in a dispute over the distribution of gasoline. The police officer has been hospitalized. Police and military are investigating the incident separately.
The crisis is a crushing blow to Sri Lanka’s middle class, who make up an estimated 15% to 20% of the country’s urban population. Until everything fell apart, they enjoyed financial security and a rising standard of living.
Such a turnaround is not unprecedented. In fact, it resembles what happened to Indonesia in the late 1990s.
The US Agency for International Development, which carries out aid projects for poor countries, was preparing for closure in the Indonesian capital Jakarta; the country didn’t seem to need the help. “As one of the Asian tigers, it would have worked its way off the aid list,” recalls Jackie Pomeroy, an economist who worked on a USAID project in the Indonesian government before joining the World Bank in Jakarta.
But then a financial crisis engulfed East Asia – which started when Thailand suddenly devalued its currency in July 1997 to fight speculators. Plagued by widespread corruption and weak banks, Indonesia was hit particularly hard. Its currency plummeted against the US dollar, forcing Indonesian companies to cough up more rupiahs to repay dollar-denominated loans.
Businesses closed. Unemployment rose. Desperate city dwellers returned to the countryside where they could grow their own food. The Indonesian economy shrank by more than 13% in 1998, an achievement on the level of a depression.
Despair turned into anger and demonstrations against the government of Suharto, which had ruled Indonesia with an iron fist since 1968. “It quickly led to political unrest,” Pomeroy said. “It became a matter of political transition and Suharto.” The dictator was forced to end autocratic rule in May 1998.
Although they live in a democracy, many Sri Lankans blame the politically dominant Rajapaksa family for the disaster. “It’s their fault, but we have to suffer for their mistakes,” said Ranjana Padmasiri, who works as a clerk at a private company.
Two of the three main Rajapaksas have resigned: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa, who was the Finance Minister. Protesters demand that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also resign. They camped in front of his office in Colombo for over two months.
Resigning, Padmasiri said, is not enough. “They can’t get away easily,” he said. “They must be held accountable for this crisis.”
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Wiseman reported from Washington.
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