Sri Lanka: What's Next with Ambika Satkunananthan

<p>On July 9th, thousands of protesters stormed the Presidential Secretariat and the official residences of the President and Prime Minister, demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, resign their posts. Rajapaksa, who fled to Singapore, has since appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as Acting President and officially resigned from his position as President. Meanwhile, ordinary Sri Lankan citizens continue to face the country's worst economic crisis in post-independence history. As of July 7th, <a href="http://www.colombopage.com/archive_22B/Jul07_1657208106CH.php" target="_blank"><u>sixteen</u></a> people have died while waiting in line for fuel. To help us complicate the mainstream narratives around the protests and protesters, and to discuss where Sri Lanka is, and should be headed, we are joined by our guest, <strong>Ambika Satkunananthan</strong>.</p> <p><strong>Ways to help people survive Sri Lanka's crisis:</strong> Please visit this <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LMM2-wGsGCl5-33t-1qVLCbzEWxwi3s-qXaCCW1v4lk/edit" target="_blank">Google doc</a> to donate to various organizations providing cooked food and dry rations to the most vulnerable communities, and <a href="https://longform.watchdog.team/data-projects/how-to-donate-to-the-sri-lankan-medical-crisis" target="_blank">this article</a> by open-source research collective, Watchdog, that details how to donate directly to the Ministry of Health and to hospitals. Despite the government's attempt to censor them, Sri Lankan health workers are declaring <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2pm8JzcOmA" target="_blank">a dire shortage of medicines and medical supplies</a>,<strong> </strong>with <strong>paediatric doctors resorting to re-using neo-natal endotracheal tubes to help premature babies breathe.</strong></p> <p><strong>Ambika Satkunananthan</strong> is currently a Fellow of the Open Society Foundations. For more than twenty years she has worked with community organizations and communi