For weeks there have been strong protests in Sri Lanka against the prevailing economic crisis. Jan Kerkhofs (73) from Helden runs a travel agency in the city of Negombo and is confronted daily with that bitter poverty. “On my street alone, three people have committed suicide.”
De Heldenaar has been living in the Asian country for years. Poverty has always been there, but recently Sri Lanka has found itself in a pitch-black recession leading to scarcity of food, medicines and fuel.
Raging protesters
That is why there have been fierce demonstrations for weeks. “A kilometer away, protesters completely burned down a minister’s house last week. There was security at that villa, but those two security guards had nothing to say against that raging group of people. Three kilometers away is also the house of a friend of attacked a minister. Reportedly they also destroyed a Lamborghini there,” says Kerkhofs from Sri Lanka.
International loans
The economic crisis in the country does not fall from the sky. Since 2007, the government has taken out various international loans for projects that do not yield anything. The result of this is debts that could not be paid off. More loans were subsequently taken out for those debts, so that the final debt burden now amounts to about fifty billion. The drought in 2016 and 2017, persistent corruption and attacks in 2019 are also nails in the coffin.
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Poverty
Kerkhofs has been confined to his home since last weekend due to the declared state of emergency. “We have been without gas for a week and have no electricity for about six hours a day.” Yet he nuances his own situation by making a comparison with the Sri Lankans themselves. “You should see how the people here are starving. Every day people come begging at my gate, including my own neighbours. Everything is scarce here. Rice, milk powder and diesel, it is all barely there. There are long queues for hours. gas stations.”
“People have nothing to lose here anymore. Many people don’t like it anymore, three people committed suicide in my street alone. The number of suicides here is huge.”
Inflation
The crisis also has significant consequences for the tourism sector, travel agency owner Kerkhofs knows, who realizes that this suffering is disproportionate to that of the local population. “At the moment, tourism is almost completely at a standstill. For myself, I can get by on my Dutch AOW. And it has only become worth more because of the inflation here.”