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Sri Lanka

Left Strategy in the Time of the IMF Counter-Revolution

30 May 2023 - by Devaka Gunawardena

Less than a year has passed since the 9th July uprising last year in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, the contours of the present regime are well established. A loose network of progressive activists and trade unions have rightly kept the basic (...)
The aftermath of Sri Lanka’s economic crash

5 March 2023 - by Meera Srinivasan

As the island nation eagerly awaits a provisional IMF package to chart its path to economic stability, it is currently witnessing a new wave of protests, mainly by workers and professionals, as people’s economic hardships increase. The government (...)
From Lebanon to Sri Lanka through Latin America and Egypt: Public debt today and in the history of capitalism

26 February 2023 - by Eric Toussaint, Anis Germany

The present interview with Éric Toussaint aims at constructing a common position about debts and their payment. It also helps to understand the part played by debt and its mechanisms in the extraction of resources of the South by the North at an (...)
Ghana’s default, letter on Sri Lanka calling for debt cancellation and Pakistan doubly victimized

11 January 2023 - by Iolanda Fresnillo

Ghana suspended payments on most of their external debts on december 19th, a week after reaching an agreement with theIMF for a US$3bn loan. Ghana has, according to Reuters, reached out to the Paris Club for an “expedited” Common Framework debt (...)
Statement by academics on dealing with Sri Lankan debt

9 January 2023 - by Collective

Sri Lanka, along with many other low- and middle-income countries, has experienced a series of financial shocks due to both external and internal factors. Global forces have caused food and energy import costs to soar and interest rates to rise, (...)
Political situation in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, microcredit, IMF

Success of the 9^th CADTM South Asia seminar in Colombo (Sri Lanka)

21 December 2022 - by CADTM, Maxime Perriot

The 9th CADTM South Asia Seminar, organised in collaboration with the Law & Society Trust (LST, Sri Lanka) and the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR, Sri Lanka), a member of La Via Campesina, was held in Colombo on Friday, (...)
International situation and Illegitimate debt

12 December 2022 - by Eric Toussaint

We are publishing a summary of the presentation made by Eric Toussaint at the 9th CADTM South Asia workshop held in Colombo on 2 and 3 December 2022. Very strong economic slowdown without reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other (...)
Carrying the debt

13 November 2022 - by Sarala Emmanuel

Feminist Collective for Economic Justice Co-Founder, researcher, and activist Sarala Emmanuel says that the brunt of the economic crisis has been borne by women and the brunt of the recovery proposals will also be borne by women. Following is (...)
Gendering the debt crisis: Feminists on Sri Lanka’s financial crisis

13 November 2022 - by Bhumika Muchhala, Kanchana N Ruwanpura, Smriti Rao

Backdrop Countless images of women carers flitted through April-July 2022 on Sri Lankan television screens, social media, and newspapers. Carers with young children, mothers with new-borns leaving them with equally young children while they (...)
SL Govt - Stop Labeling Student Protesters and Activists as Terrorists!

28 August 2022 - by Collective

We are a group of feminists writing to call urgent attention to the extra-constitutional attempts of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to suppress dissent. Lacking a popular mandate, hunting down student protesters and activists, including a (...)
‘The Canary in the Coal Mine’: Sri Lanka’s Crisis is a Chronicle Foretold

7 August 2022 - by Eric Toussaint, Balasingham Skanthakumar

Sri Lanka’s acute economic crisis and sovereign debt default, along with its people’s uprising in 2022, has drawn attention across the world. It is described as the ‘canary in the coal mine’, that is, a harbinger of the likely future for other (...)
‘Weeks when decades happen’

28 July 2022 - by Balasingham Skanthakumar

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”, as Lenin never actually said. The estrangement between the regime-state in Sri Lanka and its core constituencies, while widening over the course of the pandemic (...)
Sri Lanka’s Crisis is Endgame for Rajapaksas

11 July 2022 - by Balasingham Skanthakumar

Sri Lanka’s citizens’ movement known as the Janatha Aragalaya (‘Peoples’ Struggle’), notched its most significant victory yet, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced through the Speaker of Parliament that he would quit on 13th July, mid-way through his (...)
Sri Lankan Uprising: Struggles against neoliberal austerity

10 June 2022 - by Nagesh Rao, Nimanthi Rajasingham

Sri Lanka is in the throes of political upheaval as a spiraling economic crisis has sparked widespread mass protests and strikes against the government. On May 9th, then prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and was forced to take refuge in (...)
The Crisis of Neoliberalism and the Progressive Alternative

28 May 2022 - by Devaka Gunawardena

The current crisis in Sri Lanka is not only a political crisis of the regime of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. It is also a structural breakdown of the way in which neoliberalism has historically attempted to legitimise its own regime of accumulation. (...)
The IMF in Debt Restructuring, the Resurgence of Austerity, and the Urgency of Fiscal Justice

27 May 2022 - by Bhumika Muchhala

As Sri Lanka officially defaults on its sovereign debt repayments, and enters negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for access to loans in return for structural macro-economic change in response to the ongoing economic crisis, the (...)
The making and masking of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis

17 May 2022 - by Matt Withers

Sri Lanka is in the grip of its worst economic crisis since Independence. Behind recent headlines, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed structural problems that were decades in the making. The origins of today’s foreign exchange crisis are rooted in (...)
Is Sri Lanka burdened by ‘odious’ debt?

16 May 2022 - by Akalanka Thilakarathna

The current economic situation in the country can be linked to its political instability. While economic and political instability goes hand in hand, the current dilemma facing the country can be attributed to bad planning and decision making, (...)
The Argentinian (2001) and Sri Lankan (2022) Financial Crises: Ways Forward from a Feminist Perspective

27 April 2022 - by Corina Rodriguez

In response to Sri Lanka’s ongoing economic crisis, and the consensus across the political spectrum and even social classes that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bail-out and structural adjustment programme is the only short-to-medium term (...)
Sri Lanka: No agreement with the IMF!

15 April 2022 - by Eric Toussaint, Sushovan Dhar

A Sri Lankan delegation will travel to Washington next week to try to secure up to $4 billion from the International Monetary Fund and other lenders to help the island nation pay for food and fuel imports as well as stem defaults on its debt. (...)
Urgent plea by Sri Lankan feminists to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis caused by the economic collapse in Sri Lanka

6 April 2022 - by Collective

Sri Lanka is facing the worst economic crisis in its post-independence history. Widespread food and fuel shortages are crippling the lives of people. Such a situation that has already lasted several weeks is now resulting in widespread protests (...)
Frying Pan of Shortages to the Post-IMF Fire

4 April 2022 - by Ahilan Kadirgamar

The scorching heat in April and May is going to fry our working people as food and medicines are in short supply, oil shortages lead to transport disruption and power cuts shut down shop floors. What does one make of the mismanagement of an (...)
Averting the Looming Food Crisis

27 March 2022 - by Sandun Thududgala

A food crisis is inevitable. Food prices are soaring; shortages in essential food items are creating long queues, affecting people’s ability to work and get on with productive lives; the foreign reserve crisis has restricted the country’s ability (...)
Government Mortgages Women on Behalf of the Microfinance Companies

8 March 2022 - by Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance

The statement was issued by the Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance, Sri Lanka to commemorate International Women’s Day. March 08, 2022 The government that came into power pledging to abolish all microfinance debt has failed to keep (...)
Debt, development and the future

6 March 2022 - by Amali Wedagedara

The Satyagraha initiated by the Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance on 8 March 2021 in Hingurakgoda, Polonnaruwa, narrates a particular story of development in Sri Lanka – a dystopic one where the development aspirations of women have (...)