COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – As a mounting crowd demanded Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe resign and protesters broke through the gate of his office on Wednesday, security forces fired tear gas and circled a military helicopter.
Earlier, when protesters marched near the prime minister’s office, security forces had tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas, but did not flinch and gathered with another group. Riot police, many with gas masks and rifles in hand, stood close to the Air Force and Army troops without interfering with the crowd.
“We don’t want the robber Ranil, the bank thief, the deal thief!” the crowd chanted.
Hundreds of protesters had left the president’s office in the morning, including families with young children. Their numbers had been augmented overnight by crowds arriving in the capital, Colombo from all over Sri Lanka.
As the day began outside the president’s office, the atmosphere was generally peaceful, with an air of celebration. People processed the news that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had fled to the neighboring Maldives.
“The thieves are running away,” said Sanjayra Perera, a university librarian who was among the thousands who had traveled to Colombo. She had brought her two children, 12 and 10, by train from the western town of Gampaha on Wednesday morning.
She said she wanted her family to be in the capital when the Rajapaksa dynasty fell.
“This is our country,” she said. “We’re winning.”
The crowd found shady spots under statues, sat on the wall of an oceanfront park and waited in line, with umbrellas to block out the sun, for a chance to see the historic office building, one of three government buildings that protesters used to visit. had taken last weekend.
Despite uncertainty as to whether Mr Rajapaksa would resign on Wednesday, as the Speaker of Parliament has said and who would replace him, protesters were convinced that the end of an era was near.
“This is a historic day for us,” said Randika Sandaruwan, 26, who took a train Tuesday evening with nine friends from the nearby town of Negombo. “We had to kick our president out, and now Gota is gone,” he said, using a nickname for the president.
Mr Sandaruwan and his friends, like many protesters, had nothing to protect them from the tear gas.
Shameen Opanayake, 22, sat on the doorstep with his mother and two sisters. They had taken an early bus from their home in Kalutara, south of the capital.
“If he doesn’t step down today,” he said, referring to the president, “I don’t think it will be quiet here. The whole country rejects him.”