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How the record-breaking struggle’s roar lost its pitch nearing its crescendo

The national mood was upbeat that Saturday April 9 morn and neither the steel barricades that had been hastily set up at Galle Face Green nor the police presence could stop people power from thronging the capital’s sea side esplanade.

What had been until then a family recreational ground, its marine promenade a regular exercise haunt of walkers and joggers, its benches playing host to mid-noon sun’s blooming amore beneath brollies and its thin coat of green a playground for children to fly kites or take pony rides was soon to be transformed into a historic site of protest; where angers and frustrations over unbearable  hardships,  held long suppressed  in the public’s collective breast,  were finally to find release and change the political landscape of Lanka.

The people had been brought down to their knees, beggared beyond belief, rendered fuel-less, power-less, gas-less, food-less, school-less, work-less, dollar-less and hopeless. But they had not left their cosy shelters to rough it out in the forbidding air beneath cloudy climes and brave all weathers to beg for a can of petrol or a canister of gas.

Theirs was not a protest for food, for gas, for fuel or even medicines. Theirs was something beyond their daily bread. Theirs was the crusading cry for total regime change, echoed in one vociferous roar, ‘Gota, go home’, the four syllable mantra chanted nationwide.

As they kept round-the-clock peaceful vigil, chanting the same potent mantra to exorcise the body politic of its inherent evil, they were not alone.

AUGUST 9, THE DAY THE ARAGALAYA WENT HOME: After notching their trilogy of triumphs, the people’s protest formally ended their 122 day occupation of Galle Face Green but carried the struggle in their hearts, vowing the retreat was to return another day when the occasion so demanded. (Pic by Nimalsiri Edirisinghe)

It caught the nation’s imagination. The marathon protest, sustained for many days without its fire dimming, touched the hearts and minds of many who rushed to keep the flame alive. Iconic Sinhala music artistes like Nanda Malini, Victor Ratnayake and songwriter Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne, along with many other well-known personalities, showed up at the protest to express solidarity with the Galle Face phenomenon.

The youth movement had galvanized people of all ages, of all classes and rank, near and afar to make a beeline to the Green to pledge their faith and rekindle the fire.

Public support poured in to set up mobile lavatories, tents, makeshift kitchens, a library, mobile phone charging centre and a medical centre to cater to their basic needs while a daily stream of well-wishers provided food and drink. And to raise their morale, the rhapsodic power of music lustily rent the air to make all share in the magic of soul-stirring song.

The Galle Face Green struggle gained momentum. Pulsating with vibrant life, it was turned into a freethinkers’ temple for pilgrimage, beckoning all to come and throw out the false Gods they had once worshipped in ignorant awe. It reflected the spirit of the age and symbolized the nation’s mood for change.  Newly christened as Gotagogama, it now became a force to be reckoned with by the ruling Rajapaksa triumvirate who sensed a potential threat emerging to their feudalistic regime.

The expected backlash comes on May 9. On that morning, at his official prime ministerial residence, Mahinda Rajapaksa plays host to an invited ragbag of riffraffs drawn from the dregs of politics. Charged with fiery oratory and made heady with drink, they are let loose from Temple Trees to unleash violence on peaceful protesters at Galle Face Green. Gotagogama is attacked and smashed while police look askance, with many protesters wounded in the vicious raid on the innocent.

The nation is shocked at this brazen state-sponsored violence, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns as Prime Minister and, while the country is engulfed in flames in retaliatory attacks by angry mobs, flees Temple Trees to a secret location, whereabouts unknown.

The protesters, battered and battle-scarred, remain unbowed. They have cut their democratic teeth in the dust of the Galle Face Green. This is only the first in Gotagogama’s trilogy of triumphs.

With the Mynagohome cry now sated, it was the turn of the ‘Gota go home’ mantra and the ‘Kaputu kaak, kaak, kaak Basil, Basil’ jingle to be increased in tempo. They did not have to wait long. On June 9, Basil Rajapaksa announced he was resigning from Parliament.  Suddenly the 9th of the month began to assume special significance.

With only their prime target President Gotabaya left, protesters, in early July, issued notice on the public to come out in full force on the auspicious July 9th to complete their original mission to force him out. The people certainly responded to their call. Massive crowds swamped the Galle Face Green. Neither tear gas nor water sprays, nor even live ammo could prevent the storming of the President’s House. The President fled in terror through the rear door, and later, under the cover of night, fled the country. The rest is history.

The struggle had achieved a mammoth victory.People’se power had shown in three months of relentless protest what Parliament could only chatter of: that those who had lost the people’s mandate had no moral authority to rule and that public opinion was the ultimate arbiter. What made the mission successful, was that the collective beggary of the masses, the genuine hardships common to all, made the people spontaneously rise up en masse against their corrupt, despotic rulers. The necessary conditions had existed to make the mission triumphant.

But beneath the victory, there lurked the dread that Gotagogama had been infiltrated during the last few weeks leading to the climax. The suspicion that hardcore radical elements had crept in and usurped control of the largely leaderless movement was soon confirmed when at the height of triumph, they blatantly became its self-appointed leaders, presenting their extremist agenda and demanding its implementation in the people’s name.

The hardcore radicals made their fatal error. They naively took or deviously misinterpreted the mass support rendered to the people’s peaceful struggle as mass support for their radical creed. The people did not subscribe to any such thing. Their support only extended to the singular ‘Gota go home’ call and after that was achieved, so was their support withdrawn.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s order on July 22 to crack down on protesters may have been unnecessary for by that time the music had already died at the Gotagogama site. August 9 was indeed significant. It was the day when it was the turn of the protesters to go home. And the original genuine peaceful protesters who had been there since its inception in April, who had risen against state injustice and won, did so quietly and with dignity.

As popular actress Dhammitha Abeyratne, who had been in the vanguard of the people’s protest said it was only a retreat to return to protest another day. ‘We have only physically left Galle Face. We are ready to rise again against any corrupt politician.’

To paraphrase the words of Lincoln in his Gettysburg address: ‘The world will little note what politicians said or thought of the Gotagogama protest site. But it can never forget what the protesters – who gave their full measure of devotion to their peaceful struggle for elusive justice – did here.’

Or to reword Winston Churchill’s Battle of Britain speech: ‘Never in the field of political conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few for having ousted the Rajapaksas from official power.’

Lanka’s neck on the Chinese block with torso stretched on Indian rackTorn between two nations and feeling like a fool for being indebted to them both, Lanka has to use all the diplomatic skills at her command to simultaneously calm India’s security fears and appease China’s wrath, while the Chinese research ship ‘Yuan Wang’ remains strategically poised, 600 nautical miles off the Hambantota coast, awaiting clearance to enter the port.Last Friday’s attempt by the Government to preempt the crisis by politely asking China to defer the Chinese ship’s scheduled arrival on Thursday had only invited scorn from the Chinese Government and was dismissed out of hand. YUAN WANG: Awaits clearance to enter port Foreign Ministry spokesman Wenbin declared in Beijing on Monday, “the cooperation between China and Sri Lanka is independently chosen by the two countries and meets common interests. It does not target any third party”. But he put the ball back in Lanka’s court and made it clear it was her call when he said: “Sri Lanka is a sovereign state. It can develop relations with other countries in the light of its own development interests.” To show her displeasure at being asked to ‘defer’, China ordered the ship to stream full steam ahead to keep her August 11 date at Hambantota port. To turn the knife more, a campaign to promote tourism in Lanka by the Lankan Embassy on the Chinese social media platform ‘Douyin’ on Friday, was suddenly suspended on Monday. When India first expressed her security concerns over the ship’s visit to Hambantota port, China reiterated her legitimate right to freedom of the seas. Furthermore the Lankan Government, in the absence of President Gotabaya, had rushed to grant approval on July 12 for the ship to dock at the Hambantota port on August 11; and the Yuan Wang, on the strength of this approval had set sail from Jiangyin Port on July 13 in good faith. China has acted to the letter both in terms of international marine law and diplomatic protocol. No wonder she feels snubbed when indirectly told by Sri Lanka ‘she’s not welcome’ in deference to India’s superior wishes. Adding to the fire on Friday was the Indian Foreign Ministry which categorically denied ‘insinuations that India had exerted pressure on Sri Lanka’, putting Sri Lanka on the spot by insinuating in turn that she had acted on her own accord. China’s positive participation in Lanka’s debt restructuring process is vital to meet the IMF condition for a bailout. So is India’s positive support. Any spanner in the works, thrown by either of them to ‘defer’ attendance at the talks, will wreck Lanka’s hopes of an early recovery. Consider the question: What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Lanka’s conflict of interests has placed her right in the middle should the two ever meet headlong.

British woman faces boot for Instagramming protest picsBritish national Kayleigh Frazer, 34, is in Lanka on a visa valid till March 2023.On August 2, Immigration officials had come to her home and had seized her passport, saying she has violated her visa conditions. Since then, her passport had been returned with her visa cancelled and told to leave Lanka before August 15. KAYLEIGH: Banned in Lanka But what is the violation she had committed? She had posted photographs of the Galle Face Green protest on her Instagram. When did posting photos of the Galle Face Green protest site become a crime or instagramming on social media a violation of visa conditions for foreigners, let alone locals? Thousands of Lankans and tourists have posted such pics on social media. The international media was on the ground covering and showing round the globe the unfolding drama at Gotagogama for all the world to see. Surely, protest site pictures cannot be classified as top secret? And, if every foreigner who had posted such pictures was to be booted out, the Government might as well forget about tourism bringing the dollars. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who shortly after becoming Prime Minister in May, mused that Lanka has become an exciting place for tourists to come and even join the protest, should order an immediate inquiry into the Immigration Department’s decision to boot Kayleigh Frazer out of Lanka. Or else risk flaying migratory geese flying to the island to lay their golden forex eggs on Lanka’s barren fields to hatch and green the land once more.