COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s besieged presidential office will reopen on Monday, police said, days after anti-government demonstrators were flushed out in a military crackdown that triggered international condemnation.
The colonial-era building was occupied earlier this month by protesters angered by the island nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.
Soldiers rescued then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa from his nearby residence before it was overrun by an angry crowd the same day, with the leader eventually fleeing to Singapore and resigning.
Troops armed with batons and automatic weapons cleared the presidential secretariat shortly after midnight Friday on the orders of Rajapaksa’s successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
At least 48 people were wounded and nine arrested in the operation, during which security forces tore down tents set up by protesters outside the complex earlier this year.
“The office is ready for reopening from Monday,” a police official told AFP on Sunday, adding that forensics experts had visited the office to gather evidence of damage by protesters.
“The siege of the secretariat, which lasted since May 9, has now been lifted.”
Western governments, the United Nations and human rights groups have condemned Wickremesinghe for using violence against unarmed protesters who had announced their intention to vacate the site later on Friday.
Police spokesman Nihal Talduwa said protesters were free to continue their demonstrations at a designated site near the presidential office.
“They can remain at the official protest site. The government may even open a few more places for demonstrators in the city,” Talduwa said Sunday.
The military operation to clear the secretariat building and its immediate surroundings came less than 24 hours after Wickremesinghe was sworn in and just before a new cabinet was appointed.
Wickremesinghe was elected by legislators on Wednesday to replace Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore and resigned after demonstrators chased him from his palace.
Sri Lanka president’s office to reopen after crackdown
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Sri Lanka president’s office to reopen after crackdown
- Protestors occupied the colonial-era building earlier this month in demonstrations against the nation’s economic crisis
Costa Rica says plot to assassinate president uncovered
- Security services unveiled that a hitman had been paid to assassinate president Rodrigo Chaves
SAN JOSE: Costa Rica’s government on Tuesday said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate President Rodrigo Chaves on the eve of national elections, in which his right-wing party is tipped for victory.
Jorge Torres, head of the Central American nation’s Directorate of Intelligence and National Security, cited a “confidential source” as informing the agency that a hitman had been paid to attack Chaves.
The purported plot comes two weeks before the country holds presidential and parliamentary elections.
Chaves, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term, has backed one of his former ministers, Laura Fernandez, to succeed him.
Opposition groups have warned against what they see as possible interference in the election from the iron-fisted president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Chaves has invited Bukele to Costa Rica on Wednesday to lay the founding stone of a new mega-prison modelled on El Salvador’s brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Thousands of young men are being held without charge in CECOT, as part of Bukele’s war on gang violence.
