Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has finally been toppled after days of mass protests in the capital, Colombo. Hundreds of thousands of people descended on the city on 9 July, exactly three months after the #GotaGoGama (go home Gotabaya) movement began.
After eighteen days of mass protests, an “agreement for peace” was reached between the Ecuadorian government and leading social organisations on 30 June to return stability to the country. The protests were in response to President Guillermo Lasso’s plan to cut fuel subsidies and were led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), an umbrella organisation of various groups with a history of leading rebellions that have ousted several presidents.
Since early April, Sri Lanka has been engulfed by a wave of mass protests demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Thousands of workers and students have mobilised in the most significant mass movement in 30 years.
The phrase “under workers’ control” is, unfortunately, not one we are accustomed to hearing. But twenty years ago, ceramics produced in the Zanon factory in Neuquén, Argentina, began to have these words proudly printed on them. The story of the workers behind the factory’s takeover is full of important lessons for revolutionaries.
“A sense of relief” is how Sudanese political activist Muzan Alneel, speaking via Zoom from the capital, Khartoum, describes the mood on the streets of Sudan in the first hours of the coup on 25 October. “I remember seeing people come into the street singing, like they’re singing against the coup and they’re singing against [coup leader General] Burhan, but they’re singing”, she says.