Sri Lanka's acting president declares state of emergency

The protests are leaderless which means the common people are out on the streets and the protests have not been hijacked by political elements. Yet.

The downside there is that there is no leadership when the country needs it, and chances of undesirable elements taking advantage of power vacuum are high.

Good luck to Sri Lanka.

A beautiful country with wonderful people.

I hope it can bounce back.

Actually I am sure it will bounce back.

It is going to take a lot of support and time to bring back the country from disaster, the many different mistakes really put the country in a terrible position and now is very vulnerable to foreign influence.

Never had a chance to visit there, and now this

Sri Lanka's former leaders took their orders from the UN/WEF "sustainability" mob and this is what happened.

Coming to a country near you, unless you kick them out.

It is going to take a lot of support and time to bring back the country from disaster, the many different mistakes really put the country in a terrible position and now is very vulnerable to foreign influence.

Yeah, Sri Lanka's biggest problem is not the economic suicide just carried out, its foreign interference.

Their little foray into environmental radicalism had its all too familiar results.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis/

While the proximate cause of Sri Lanka’s humanitarian crisis was a bungled attempt to manage its economic fallout from the global pandemic, at the bottom of the political problem was a math problem and at the bottom of the math problem was an ideological problem—or, more accurately, a global ideological movement that is innumerate and unscientific by design, promoting fuzzy and poorly specified claims about the possibilities of alternative food production methods and systems to obfuscate the relatively simple biophysical relationships that govern what goes in; what comes out; and the economic, social, and political outcomes that any agricultural system can produce, whether on a regional, national, or global scale.

Lets watch the usual suspects mumble something about "forgetting to carry the 2" while their entire worldview has been shown for what it is - a total lie.

Yeah, Sri Lanka's biggest problem is not the economic suicide just carried out, its foreign interference.

No, that is not the text you quoted says, the biggest problem is the current situation that will require a lot of help to get out of, but it CAN be further complicated by foreign interference that could solve little while causing further problems. This would not be the first time it happens and likely not the last either.

Sri Lanka's problems are fourfold. Number one the government went deeply in debt to China for port infrastructure and other projects. They owe China in excess of $60 billion USD. Not the World Bank or the IMF, but China.

Number two, the government subsidizes food and fuel. Instead of the seller using the money earned from selling at market prices and using that to buy on the wholesale market the goods they wish to sell, in Sri Lanka the government buys food and fuel from abroad and sells it at artificially low prices to local merchants who cannot sell at market prices but at the artificially low prices set by the government. That forces the government to use its own tax revenues to buy food and fuel instead of the retailers buying it directly from their earnings.

Number three, those revenues came primarily from tourism and tea sales abroad. A string of terrorist attacks early in 2019 scared off all the tourists and pandemic restrictions never allowed tourism to resume, depriving the government of a major tax revenue source.

Number four, the government ordered the nationwide adoption of organic farming. The farmers were in no way prepared for this and there were large across the board crop failures. The loss of tea exports created yet another major lost revenue stream for the government of Sri Lanka.

Lacking its two major sources of tax revenue the debt payment to China used up virtually of of Sri Lanka's remaining foreign exchange and left the government unable to buy subsidized food and fuel.

Really, if Sri Lanka had not subsidized food and fuel suppliers would be able to buy new stocks on the open market irregardless of the state of the governments treasury. But because they are subsidized and prices capped by the government their hands are tied.

Sri Lanka’s beleaguered leaders have imposed a state of emergency several times since April, when public protests took hold against the government’s handling of a deepening economic crisis and a persistent shortage of essentials.

Wickremesinghe had announced a state of emergency last week, after president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country to escape a popular uprising against his government, but it had not been officially notified or gazetted.

https://worldabcnews.com/sri-lanka-says-imf-bailout-talks-near-end-after-declaring-state-of-emergency/