As negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continue, Sri Lanka’s finance minister, Ali Sabry, announced that the country would receive $300 to $600 million from the World Bank over the next four months to buy medicine and other essential goods.

Speaking in parliament Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), stressed that the removal of the executive presidency is not sufficient, instead a total reform of the state on federal lines is needed.

“For the first time, Sinhalese people are questioning their own leaders,” Ponnambalam told parliament. They are calling into “question 74 years of leadership and the very system”.

Speaking at St. Anthony’s Shrine, Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, raised the possibility that the Easter Sunday attacks were part of a ploy to stoke ethnic divisions and security concerns ahead of the 2019 Presidential elections.

Quoting the parliamentary select committees report he notes:

Protesters in Jaffna demanding self-determination this week 

Civil society organisations in the North-East and South have called on protesters that are demanding the Rajapaksa regime to change, to also include calls for the structural change of the state that recognises the Tamil right to self-determination. 

The war crimes-accused head of Sri Lanka’s army released a statement yesterday, calling on “intelligent” Sri Lankans to back the armed forces and “co-operate” as they had done when the military launched an offensive that killed tens of thousands of Tamils in 2009.

Commemoration events were held across the Tamil homeland on Thursday, to mark 3 years since the devastating Easter Sunday attacks, in which more than 250 people were killed.

A monument to a man who oversaw two anti-Tamil pogroms and the architect behind one of the most racist pieces of legislation on the island’s history overlooks the Galle Face protests. If these protests are to be inclusive of all in Sri Lanka, that statue must go.

At least 18 more Eelam Tamil refugees landed in Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu last night, as Tamils continued to flee Sri Lanka amidst an economic crisis, which has worsened conditions for many given its history of repression and blighted human rights record.

The 18 Eelam Tamils, including a 4-month pregnant woman and a one-and-half-year-old child, reported arrived in Rameswaram in two groups. 13 people came from Mannar and another 5 from Jaffna.

Sri Lanka’s finance ministry confirmed that it had met with officials from the US State Department, USAID and senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures, with talks continuing over an emergency bailout loan for Colombo as anti-government protests rumble on.

A day after Sri Lanka’s main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), presented a drafted proposal for the 21^st amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution, 40 independent MPs presented an alternative draft.

The SJB’s proposal would see the abolition of the executive presidential system which has been in place since 1978. In its place would see a parliamentary-led system, to which the President is accountable and elected by. A further reform would be that cabinet ministers can be removed by a vote of no confidence.