Long gone are the throngs of protesters who occupied an area around the president’s office for months during Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since independence. Instead a slew of carollers sang to the public from across the heavily-guarded fences of the Presidential Secretariat.
Next to the building rose an 80 ft (24m) Christmas tree, the signature piece in a landscape dotted with décor, food stalls and musical shows. And as fireworks ushered in the new year, a massive crowd flocked to the oceanfront promenade known as Galle Face Green.
It was all part of a festive zone planned by the government as a year-end tourist attraction in the central business district of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.But for many locals, who used the site as their ‘ground zero’ for Occupy-style protests from April to August and demanded their leaders resign, there is little to celebrate.
‘It’s disgusting,’says Swasthika Arulingam.’It’s an indecent display of wealth that this country does not have,and of resources this country is denying to the weakest sectors of our population.’ The carnival lighting is particularly galling, she adds,given that the state-run electricity board has incurred a loss of 150bn Sri Lankan rupees (£344m) this year.
The prospect of extended daily blackouts looms again. Food staples, transport fees and children’s school supplies are increasingly unaffordable. And the new year brings with it steep tax hikes that will only compound the misery. There is ‘a kind of pseudo-stability’right now, Ms Arulingam says, but residents are under tremendous stress as it grows harder to make a living.
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