4 April 2022 08:54 am Views - 3267
Over 450 Sri Lankans of all ethnicities and walks of life united at Marble Arch in London to call upon Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to vacate his position.
Fed up by the country spiralling out of control, many Sri Lankans called for the entire Rajapaksa family and their kith and kin to vacate politics and leave Sri Lanka.
The demonstrators walked from Marble Arch to the Sri Lankan High Commission and spent two hours chanting slogans.
GOTA go Home and Gota Hora were the most popular chants amongst the crowds. Many attendees had come armed with creatively worded posters. Not content with attending with their families, some Sri Lankans had brought along their pet dogs, who also had placards hanging around their necks.
Strangely, the Sri Lankan High Commission was sans the national flag. Mano Herat who was present at the protest said she was there to show solidarity with the people back home. Upul Gunaratne who has family in Sri Lanka said people were at a breaking point due to the astronomical cost of living which has put many people on the poverty line.
Former Miss Sri Lanka and model Ornella Gunasekera said “it is time for an era of new governance. While in power, the Rajapaksas did not take care of the people. Now they need to give back the money they robbed. Enough is enough!”
Harsha Siriwardene a former Committee member of the UNP association in the UK added “we need an interim government run by an able team with a clean track record. That is the only salvation for Sri Lanka.”
Aruna, a former diehard Gota supporter, is today a disillusioned man and says he is disappointed at the way the country has been plundered. “I supported him all the way because he led our country to victory, but post-war his performance was abysmal” Harsha Kannangara a member of the legal fraternity in the UK said he had come to express his dismay that the president had brought about a curfew to stifle the people. “This is a gross violation of the democratic rights of the people. You can’t just take away people’s rights to protect your own skin” he added.
The collective request of the demonstrators was for the President and his entire family to resign from politics and to address the charges of bribery and corruption levelled against them.