{"id":46476,"date":"2022-07-16T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/16\/i-screamed-and-cried-how-sri-lankan-protesters-unseated-their-president"},"modified":"2022-07-16T13:00:02","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T04:00:02","slug":"i-screamed-and-cried-how-sri-lankan-protesters-unseated-their-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=46476","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I screamed and cried\u2019: how Sri Lankan protesters unseated their president"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s triumphant protesters celebrate Rajapaska\u2019s departure, but say bigger systemic changes still needed<\/p>\n<p>For more than three months, Eshan Dias has spent every night living in a makeshift tarpaulin tent in the centre of Colombo, Sri Lanka\u2019s commercial capital. Through boiling heat, monsoon rains and shortages of food and water, he and hundreds of others refused to move from this site on Galle Face Green, which became the defiant heart of the anti-government movement demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n<p>Late on Thursday night, a crowd came roaring into his tent. They had succeeded; Rajapaksa, who had already fled the country in the dead of night on Wednesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/14\/sri-lanka-president-gotabaya-rajapaksa-quits-protests\">was stepping down<\/a>. By Friday morning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/15\/sri-lanka-mps-to-elect-new-president-after-gotabaya-rajapaksa-officially-resigns\">he was officially president no more<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/16\/i-screamed-and-cried-how-sri-lankan-protesters-unseated-their-president\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s triumphant protesters celebrate Rajapaska\u2019s departure, but say bigger systemic changes still neededFor more than three months, Eshan Dias has spent every night living in a makeshift tarpaulin tent in the centre of Colombo, Sri Lanka\u2019s comme&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,674,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46477,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46476\/revisions\/46477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}