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Sri Lanka erupts

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planetgeli

There's no future in England's dreaming
It's been coming. Thousands of people have stormed the Presidential Palace. The country is bankrupt and has run out of essential items for living. It's a country on the edge at the best of times (recent civil war, corrupt government) and these are now not the best of times for Sri Lanka. I love the place and have an old friend there. No idea what is to come but this looks like the start of a revolution.


Amazing pictures in this ongoing coverage. Even better videos of the storming of the Palace and people jumping in the President's pool etc but I can't link. They're in the BBC story.

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Does anyone have any idea what's going happen next, I mean will the people topple the government?
 
Bingoman said:
Does anyone have any idea what's going happen next, I mean will the people topple the government?
Click to expand...

They're having a go. It's dynasty politics, they will have a go but the President's family have been big cheeses in politics and the military for years. Then you've got potential ethnic conflict on top of that - I'm sure the Tamils haven't got over losing the war and the continuation of their ill treatment.

There's a lot to overcome. In the meantime they have no fuel until the 22nd July. Or much of anything else apart from rampant uncontrolled inflation.
 
Supine said:
I was talking to a Sri Lankan friend about this. With the fuel running out he made the point that it isn’t just about transport. Lots of them use kerosene to cook and they now haven't got any. Not good.
Click to expand...

The electricity is also off more often than it's on apparently. Which means no fans, in Sri Lanka in July :(
 
Hmm…I’m not normally one for paranoid or conspiratorial stuff here but there’s something quite odd and perhaps a little sinister in how this is being reported.

The proximate cause of this collapse is a foolish decision to ban the use of chemical fertilisers and force all Sri Lanka farmers to go “organic” but, crucially, with zero infrastructure or training or preparation for the switch at all. It was policy insanity from a deeply corrupt governing party/family that had fallen under the influence of quite fundamentalist green types (advocating green economic shock therapy basically, whether they realised it or not).

That’s all bad enough but the really troubling part is how this story is a litmus test for a media outlet.

Almost all of these are staffed by people who, at least optically, try and excel at green-ness.

It seems that most of these people are incapable of reporting this element of the story as it is totally absent from most outlets, lending the reporting a bizarrely deterministic feel, as if they are reporting on some natural disaster wholly beyond anyone’s control.

In truth, this is the fruit of insanely executed green policy.

The Economist are one of the few reporting it accurately.
 
Diamond said:
Hmm…I’m not normally one for paranoid or conspiratorial stuff here but there’s something quite odd and perhaps a little sinister in how this is being reported.

The proximate cause of this collapse is a foolish decision to ban the use of chemical fertilisers and force all Sri Lanka farmers to go “organic” but, crucially, with zero infrastructure or training or preparation for the switch at all. It was policy insanity from a deeply corrupt governing party/family that had fallen under the influence of quite fundamentalist green types (advocating green economic shock therapy basically, whether they realised it or not).

That’s all bad enough but the really troubling part is how this story is a litmus test for a media outlet.

Almost all of these are staffed by people who, at least optically, try and excel at green-ness.

It seems that most of these people are incapable of reporting this element of the story as it is totally absent from most outlets, lending the reporting a bizarrely deterministic feel, as if they are reporting on some natural disaster wholly beyond anyone’s control.

In truth, this is the fruit of insanely executed green policy.

The Economist are one of the few reporting it accurately.
Click to expand...

I think you are over-playing a conspiracy angle here. You are absolutely right to bring up the shift in green policy as one of the causes of this crisis, but I can find plenty of media outlets who report this.
 
The pesticides being banned thing has definitely been mentioned, but my impression from the news is that it's part of a much longer history of misrule.
 
Well it's erupting some more. More burning of residences today. PM (now in effect the acting President) has ordered the military and police to do whatever is necessary to quell the rioting. Actual President still hasn't resigned but flew to the Maldives overnight to escape.

Sri Lanka in danger of sliding into anarchy​


says the BBC.
 
Scumbag President is off to Saudi Arabia for safe haven. Going via Singapore, where he is on a plane to atm. He still hasn’t resigned and has immunity from prosecution until he does. So he’s waiting to reach S.Arabia before he resigns.
 
Still thinking about what's going on there. This feels like a huge story in a bellwether sense. While the pre-existing conditions of govt corruption were relevant to the disastrous green policy, the fact of the matter is that those standards of governance there are pretty much par for the course for most of the world outside of the developed regions. As in, the majority of the world is more like Sri Lanka, not the EU/UK/US. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first of many governance/green collapses - some toxic stew of entrenched shit governance and corruption that meets frankly dangerous climate grifters - lots of good ones I'm sure but here the crazies got loose and if they did it here, they'll do it elsewhere.

I'm just waiting for the first bright spark to talk about the upsides to de-growth and de-population, even if achieved in a "messy" fashion...
 
And what is plan B?

Would/could the Indians do anything to help (given the proximity and presumably cultural connections..)?

In the absence of one, you're looking at a slide into anarchy and, given the history of the country, probably civil war.

I was there 4 years ago for about a month - wonderful place and lovely people. But it did feel like a place that wasn't managing to move forwards.
 
The ‘green snowflakes did this’ angle is ridiculous. It’s been coming for at least 2 years. I’ve learnt about it a bit through my job, this and at the same time what’s been going on with the economy in Lebanon .
The photographs of hundreds of people crowding round dry petrol pumps are exactly the same in both places, and both are crises created by idiots being in charge, not inevitable at all. The consequences both places include kids not being able to eat let alone get to school, it’s no glorious revolution .
 
Diamond said:
And what is plan B?

Would/could the Indians do anything to help (given the proximity and presumably cultural connections..)?

In the absence of one, you're looking at a slide into anarchy and, given the history of the country, probably civil war.

I was there 4 years ago for about a month - wonderful place and lovely people. But it did feel like a place that wasn't managing to move forwards.
Click to expand...
Given that the president has fled and the pm's position isn't secure whose plan b are you talking about?
 
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