#Action essentials free fire full#

The situation facing working people will only worsen as any deal struck with the IMF will inevitably come with draconian austerity measures.

Immediately, bakery owners increased the price of a 400-gram loaf of bread by 30 rupees and hiked up the price of their other products as well. Yesterday, the islandвЂ™s main wheat flour producing company announced a 40-rupee increase in the price of a kilogram of flour. It is also continuing extensive daily power cuts, as it is unable to pay for the diesel needed for thermal power generation. Yesterday, the government gave the green light for a 35 percent increase in bus fares. The huge rise in fuel prices has a chain effect, pushing up the cost of transport and many other items.

This is a direct result of the Ukraine war that has driven up oil prices internationally. With this weekвЂ™s increases, petrol prices have been increased by 91 percent this year alone, while diesel has increased by 139 percent. The protests, however, are being driven by rapidly deteriorating conditions that are making it increasingly difficult for workers and the poor to put food on the table and survive. In a speech to his newly appointed cabinet, President Rajapakse issued a thinly veiled warning, calling on protesters not to вЂњallow opportunists to turn the protest into rioting.вЂќ The Rajapakse regime is desperate to end the protest movement so as to claim that it has the situation under control. The Central Bank has declared a temporary default on foreign loans and a Sri Lankan delegation is currently in Washington to beg for emergency assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The government is confronting an unprecedented economic political and social crisis for which it has no answers other than to impose new burdens on working people. The decision to fire on the crowd, which had been blocking the rail line for hours, would only have been made at top levels.

The violent police attack on the protest in Rambukkana occurred without warning, a deliberate attempt to intimidate protesters more broadly. Protesters demanding fuel occupy a railway in Rambukkana on Ap(Photo: Facebook)

#Action essentials free fire full#

Video footage cited by the Guardian showed вЂњa senior officer instructing others dressed in full riot gear: вЂFire, fire and chase them out.вЂ™вЂќ Suddenly, without warning, police started firing live rounds into the crowd. When people refused to move, police attacked by firing tear gas. At noon the situation became extremely tense. Police were heavily mobilised from Rambukkana and nearby police stations. When that was refused, people began protesting by blocking highways and the railway line. When distribution began yesterday, people demanded fuel at the previous price because they had been there for days. On Monday night, a petrol tanker arrived at the fuel station. He used his lorry to supply fodder to the tamed elephants kept at the houses of the wealthy.ДЄs in other areas, thousands of people had been waiting in queues at the Rambukkana fuel distribution station for the last three days, without getting petrol or diesel.

An eyewitness to yesterdayвЂ™s brutal police attack told the World Socialist Web Site that the dead person was 40-year-old Chaminda Lakshan, a father of two living in Narambedda village near Rambukkana.