Ranil Wickremesinghe, 73, before taking office on July 20, declared a state of emergency across the South Asian state

Sri Lanka, an island nation of 22 million people, has been at the center of political and economic turmoil since the United National Party government defaulted on $51 billion in foreign debt in May.

For months, the country has experienced severe shortages of fuel, food and other basic commodities in an inflationary spiral.

Motorists lined up for the blocks to get fuel and cooking oil. The failure of the agricultural fertilizer policy has been cited as the cause of the decline in agricultural production.

Fuel shortages have hampered the production and marketing of agricultural products such as tea which is exported from Sri Lanka. Due to the lack of fuel, the trucks that transport these agricultural products for domestic marketing and export have been drastically reduced.

Workers and small traders sometimes queue for two days to buy limited quantities of fuel. On June 28, the now ousted government of President Rajapaksa banned the distribution and purchase of fuel for reasons considered non-essential. However, people in urban areas continued to queue for long periods. Some eventually received a token promising to meet their gasoline and cooking oil needs at a later date.

Food shortages have caused many Sri Lankans to reduce their diets to just one meal a day. Schools have been closed due to transportation issues. Due to the high rate of inflation, the value of the national currency, the rupee, continued to decline. This set of circumstances drained the country’s foreign exchange reserves to just over $1 billion.

Earlier in July, thousands of angry protesters stormed the residences of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, taking over the palace while helping themselves to food, luxurious furnishings and a swimming pool. Rajapaksa, a member of a powerful political family in Sri Lanka, fled to Singapore where he later resigned from the presidency with an email to parliament.

Rajapaksa appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, as temporary president. Wickremesinghe’s house was also broken into and subjected to arson which caused extensive damage.

On July 20, through a secret parliamentary ballot, Wickremesinghe was elected as the new president, pledging to work with other political forces to improve the economic situation of the people. Wickremesinghe had served five other times as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

Several hundred protesters quickly gathered in Colombo’s commercial center to express their dismay at the actions of parliament. Some of the protesters demanded the immediate resignation of Wickremesinghe who has had political ties to the Rajapaksa family for many years.

In a report on the Wickremesinghe installation published by the Associated Press, an activist was quoted as saying: ”We are very sad, very disappointed in the 225 MPs we have elected to speak for us, which they don’t ‘didn’t,” said Visaka Jayawware, a performance artist in the crowd. “We will continue to fight for the people of Sri Lanka. our demands are met. Wickremesinghe “does not have a mandate to lead the country”, said Nemel Jayaweera, a human resources professional. “We will oppose him.” (https://apnews.com/article/elections -asia-presidential-race-and-ethnicity-9f43a592bd31eea614a25c35438d920b)

The current social and economic conditions in Sri Lanka provide a strong indication of the depth of the global capitalist crisis. As a developing post-colonial state that gained independence from British colonialism in 1948 after 133 (1815-1948) years of imperialist rule, Sri Lanka struggled to overcome divisions based on ethnicity and class structures. inherited from Britain.

Several states in Africa and Asia are facing similar challenges in their attempts to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic difficulties. Even the main industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America are experiencing a sharp rise in inflation and the threat of a new recession.

In the capitalist states of Britain and the United States, the administrations of President Joe Biden and incumbent Prime Minister Boris Johnson have failed to secure a favorable opinion from the majority of the electorate in those countries. Divisions within the legislative and judicial branches of government in the United States have rendered the Democratic Party’s limited social reform agenda null and void.

Therefore, we should not be surprised to see the erosion of administrations in developing countries. These economic factors, combined with the threat of a protracted war between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on one side against Washington and its NATO allies on the other, have led to an escalation of uncertainty. and international insecurity.

Sri Lanka has experienced tumultuous conflicts throughout its history. Formerly called Ceylon, the British colonialists deliberately created divisions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamil population that largely resides in the north and east of the island. The Tamils, mainly Hindus, were more exposed during the colonial era to Christianity and missionary education. These colonial policies shaped the social class structure of Sri Lanka after independence in 1948.

In July 1983, these latent tensions exploded, resulting in a civil war that continued until 2009 when the Sri Lankan army crushed the bases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organization seeking to create a Tamil state in the northeast region of the island. Following the civil war, hundreds of thousands of Tamils ​​fled Sri Lanka to settle in other regional and distant countries.

The role of the International Monetary Fund

Wickremesinghe, in his inaugural address to the Sri Lankan parliament, expressed his desire to negotiate with the IMF a “bailout” plan that could alleviate the country’s serious economic problems. However, the history of the IMF in such circumstances where developing countries suffer major economic recession or depression, has resulted in the implementation of austerity measures which have a disproportionate negative impact on workers, the poor, women and young people.

Many post-colonial states at the time of independence quite often continued the economic models of cash crop production and trade developed under imperialist rule. Therefore, major Western consumer states that purchase their goods in hard currency can wield considerable influence over the domestic policies of a given country.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a June 28 article pointed out: “Last week a team from the International Monetary Fund arrived in Sri Lanka for talks on a $3 billion ($2.4 billion) bailout deal. pounds sterling). The government is also seeking assistance from India and China to import essential items. New Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (now president) said earlier this month that the country needed at least $5 billion over the next six months to pay for essentials such as food, fuel and fertilizers. In recent weeks, ministers have also called on farmers to grow more rice and given government officials an extra day off a week to grow food, amid fears of shortages. (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61961821)

Sri Lanka’s main exports include manufactured garments, tea and other agricultural products. The country is also heavily dependent on tourism which has been declining since the start of the pandemic in the first months of 2020.

A source who monitors the Sri Lankan economy says: “The latest country-specific data available shows that approximately two-thirds (66.3%) of products exported from Sri Lanka were purchased by importers in the United States of America. America (24.8% of the world market). total), United Kingdom (8.9%), India (6.1%), Germany (5.7%), Italy (4.5%), Belgium (2.93%), Netherlands (2 .87%), China (2.4%), Canada (2.11%), Turkey (2.1%), the United Arab Emirates (2%) and Japan (1.9%)…. Another key indicator of a country’s economic performance is its unemployment rate. Sri Lanka’s unemployment rate averaged 5.3% for 2021, down from an average of 5.5% in 2020, according to International Monetary Fund measurements. The administrative capital of Sri Lanka is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, while the commercial capital of the island country is Colombo. (https://www.worldstopexports.com/sri-lankas-top-10-exports/)

Whatever structural adjustment plans are imposed on Sri Lanka by the IMF, they will not meet the needs of the majority of workers, youth and national minorities. The inevitable failure of this approach to the escalation of the global crisis within capitalist states will be replicated in other geopolitical regions of the world.

Opposition parties in Sri Lanka are divided on the way forward in the crisis. Several left-wing parties have recently worked in alliances that won a small number of seats in parliament. Although the country during the 1950s and 1960s played an important role in the non-aligned and socialist-oriented movements, in recent years Sri Lanka has been dominated by neoliberal political interests as represented by the Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe administrations. UNP, who have maintained close ties with the military.

Faced with a similar crisis, in the southern African state of Zambia, a major copper producer, the government defaulted in late 2020 on its international obligations to global financial interests. The recent change of government inside the country has not affected the need to seek IMF relief. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/zambia-becomes-africas-first-coronavirus-era-default-what-happens-now.html)

People around the world should pay close attention to the situation in Sri Lanka, as its outcome will bode well for industrialized and developing countries alike. The growing contradictions within the capitalist system result in appalling conditions for workers and oppressed peoples around the world. Therefore, an international movement is needed to respond according to the interests of the majority of people around the world.