Reopening presidential office of Sri Lanka after Crackdown

• Police say that the presidential office of Sri Lanka will reopen on Monday.
• At least 48 people were hurt in the operation, and nine people were arrested.
• The government is in talks with the IMF about paying its $51 billion in foreign debt.

Police say that besieged presidential office of Sri Lanka will reopen on Monday. This comes after anti-government protesters were cleared out by the military in a move that was criticised around the world.

People were angry about the island’s unprecedented economic crisis, so earlier this month, protesters broke into and took over a building from the colonial era.

On the same day, soldiers had to go to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s nearby home and save him. The president then fled to Singapore and resigned a few days later.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over for Rajapaksa, gave the order for troops with batons and automatic weapons to clear out the 92-year-old presidential secretariat on Friday before dawn.

At least 48 people were hurt in the operation, and nine people were arrested. During the operation, security forces tore down the tents that protesters had been setting up outside the complex since April.

“The office is ready for reopening from Monday,” a police official said Sunday without giving his name because he was not allowed to talk to the press.

“The siege of the secretariat, which lasted since May 9, has now been lifted.”

Police said that forensic experts were sent to the Presidential Secretariat to look at the damage and gather evidence.

Wickremesinghe has been criticised by Western governments, the UN, and human rights groups for using violence against unarmed protesters who had said they would leave the site later on Friday.

Wickremesinghe defended the crackdown and said that he had told diplomats in Colombo on Friday that they couldn’t block government buildings.

Nihal Talduwa, a police spokesman, said that protesters could continue their actions at a designated site near the president’s office.

“They can remain at the official protest site. The government may even open a few more places for demonstrators in the city,” Talduwa said Sunday.

The military operation to clear the secretariat building and the area around it happened less than 24 hours after Wickremesinghe was sworn in as president and just before a new cabinet was chosen.

The 22 million people who live in Sri Lanka have also had to deal with long blackouts, record inflation, and shortages of food, fuel, and gasoline.

Its government is officially broke because it hasn’t paid its $51 billion in foreign debt. Right now, it is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get money to keep going.

The economic crisis that led to the protests isn’t getting better, but the government said on Sunday that it would reopen schools that had been closed for about a month.

The education ministry said that students and teachers will only have to go to school three days a week. This is because there is still a national fuel shortage, which makes it hard to get around.

Even though the government set up a rationing system, there were miles-long lines of cars waiting to fill up on Sunday.

Wickremesinghe, the new president, has said that he will present a new budget for the rest of the year in August because the previous estimates of income and spending were too low.