[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Missing both legs and an arm, former special forces soldier Thushara Kumara is an unlikely critic of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a wartime defense chief who became Sri Lanka’s president in 2019.
But the 43-year-old army pensioner is one of several dozen veterans now camping out at a protest site near the president’s office in Colombo, having lost faith in a leader who stubbornly resisted calls to resign when the economy began to implode and most of his cabinet quit.
"We dedicated our lives to save this country and it is extremely sad to see what has happened to it now," Kumara said, sat surrounded by old comrades, several with prosthetic limbs.
Weakened by the pandemic, the Indian Ocean island’s economy was fast-tracked toward disaster by a surge in global oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. The government finances were already in a parlous state, partly owing to populist policies, including tax cuts.
Rapidly dwindling foreign currency reserves left Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, without enough dollars to pay for vital imports of fuel, food and medicine, and sometimes violent mostly peaceful street demonstrations erupted this month as shortages and power cuts became acute.
Earlier this month Sri Lanka kicked off talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a program to stabilize the economy. The government is also in talks with several countries and multilateral agencies to line up about $3 billion in bridge financing and has suspended repayment on some of its foreign debt to divert funds to pay for essential imports.
Amid the unfolding crisis, there have been street protests countrywide, with thousands of people joining some demonstrations.
"I get a pension because of the taxpayers of this country, and we have a responsibility to step up now and support the brave efforts by these young people to save this country," Kumara said.
"They are fighting for this country’s future," said the veteran, who had served in the army for 16 years. "That is why we are here."
Father to three children, Kumara lost his limbs in a mortar explosion weeks before Sri Lanka’s bloody 26-year war against Tamil separatists ended in May 2009.
Rajapaksa and his brother, then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, ordered the offensive that finally broke the rebels’ resistance, but thousands of people died in the onslaught.
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