好英语网斯里兰卡危机发酵：总统出逃，抗议者与警方爆发冲突
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka descended into political chaos Wednesday, as the unpopular president fled the country and protesters overran the interim leader’s offices, leaving it unclear who held power or how long it would last.
斯里兰卡科伦坡——周三，斯里兰卡陷入政治混乱，不得民心的总统逃离该国，抗议者占领了临时领导人的办公室，这使得人们目前尚不清楚谁在掌权，也不清楚这种混乱状况将持续多久。
Mass demonstrations and tear gas filled the streets of Colombo, the capital, and late into the night, protesters clashed with the police outside Parliament, the only top government compound that had not been occupied. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka, a supporter of the protest movement, warned of “a situation of lawlessness and anarchy.”
大规模示威和催泪瓦斯充斥首都科伦坡的街头，深夜，抗议者在议会外与警察发生冲突，议会是唯一未被占领的最高政府建筑。抗议运动的支持者——斯里兰卡律师协会警告，可能会出现“无法律无政府的情况”。
在总统周三逃离该国后，抗议者冲进了科伦坡的总理办公室。
Months of largely peaceful protest and power struggles have moved the country no closer to addressing the root cause of popular fury: a crashed economy that has brought fuel shortages, rising food prices and widespread misery.
数月的和平抗议和权力斗争并没有促使该国解决经济崩溃导致的燃料短缺、食品价格上涨和大范围的民不聊生，这些是引发民众愤怒的根本原因。
It is also unclear whether the departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was a lasting step toward demonstrators’ goal of breaking his family’s hold on power.
抗议者的目标是打破拉贾帕克萨家族对权力的控制，目前还不清楚戈塔巴雅·拉贾帕克萨总统的离开对于实现这一目标是否迈出了持久的一步。
The day began with a bombshell: Mr. Rajapaksa had left the island nation before dawn on a military aircraft to the Maldives. Over the weekend, tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of protesters had stormed his offices and residence, and he had gone into hiding.
这一天从一个重磅新闻开始：拉贾帕克萨在黎明前乘坐军用飞机离开了这个岛国，前往马尔代夫。上周末，数万甚至数十万抗议者冲进了他的办公室和官邸，而他已经躲了起来。
“The thieves are running away,” said Sanjayra Perera, a university librarian who was among the thousands of protesters who traveled to Colombo, along with her two young children.
“窃贼正在逃跑，”大学图书管理员桑贾伊拉·佩雷拉说道，她带着两个年幼的孩子，是成千上万来到科伦坡的抗议者之一。
To the demonstrators, it felt like victory, confirmation of statements by government officials that both the president and the equally unpopular prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, would step down. But tensions grew amid confusion over Mr. Rajapaksa’s status, and just who was in charge.
对抗议者来说，这感觉像是一场胜利，证实了政府官员的声明，即总统和同样不得民心的总理拉尼尔·维克勒马辛哈将下台。但在对拉贾帕克萨目前的身份以及谁在掌权的困惑中，紧张局势还在加剧。
As the day wore on, it emerged that the old guard was trying to cling to power. Mr. Rajapaksa had left but not resigned. His ally Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the Parliament speaker, read a statement on behalf of the president saying that Mr. Rajapaksa had appointed Mr. Wickremesinghe as acting president “while the president is overseas.”
随着这天慢慢过去，人们发现保守势力仍在试图抓住权利。拉贾帕克萨已经离开，但没有辞职。他的盟友、议会议长马欣达·亚帕·阿贝瓦德纳代表总统宣读了一份声明，称拉贾帕克萨已指示维克勒马辛哈，于“总统在海外时”任代理总统。
Even after fleeing, Mr. Rajapaksa, 73, was not committing to ending his presidency. Instead, he was leaving as caretaker someone they despised, who had been expected to leave office as well.
即使在逃离之后，73岁的拉贾帕克萨也没有承诺结束他的总统职位。相反，他留下了一个被人们鄙视的看守人，而这个人本来也应该下台。
A massive crowd marched on Mr. Wickremesinghe’s offices, demanding that he step down. After a standoff that involved the security forces firing constant rounds of tear gas, protesters overran the compound.
大批民众涌向维克勒马辛哈的办公室，要求他下台。安全部队不断发射催泪瓦斯，对峙后，抗议者占领了大院。
“The whole country has rejected him,” Shameen Opanayke, a 22-year-old with his sisters and mother at the protest in Colombo, said of the president.
“整个国家都拒绝了他，”22岁的沙门·奥帕奈克和他的姐妹还有母亲在科伦坡的抗议活动中谈到总统时说。
Of the acting president, Mr. Wickremesinghe, he said “nobody wants him either.”
对于代理总统维克勒马辛哈，他说“也没有人想要他”。
In a televised address, Mr. Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and asked the security forces to retake the overrun government buildings.
在电视讲话中，维克勒马辛哈宣布进入紧急状态，并要求安全部队重新夺回被占领的政府大楼。
“We have to rid this country of this fascist threat,” he said, referring to elements among the protesters.
“我们必须让这个国家摆脱这种法西斯威胁，”他指其中一些抗议者。
But as a sign of the depth of the confusion, it was not clear whether the security chiefs were following his orders. There was little sign of efforts to clear the streets or retake the buildings, and the generals made no mention of the acting president or the state of emergency in their own televised statement to the nation that followed.
但尚不清楚安全负责人是否在听从他的命令，由此可见混乱程度之深。几乎没有要清理街道或重新夺回建筑物的迹象，并且将军们在随后向全国发表的电视讲话中也没有提及代理总统或紧急状态。
The crisis comes just when Sri Lanka needs to project stability to secure badly needed international financial help. The country is out of foreign currency reserves, lacking money for crucial imports. It has defaulted on its massive foreign debt, and it has exhausted immediate sources of assistance.
这场危机发生之际，斯里兰卡正需要加强稳定，以确保亟需的国际金融援助。该国外汇储备已经耗尽，缺乏用于重要进口商品的资金。它已经拖欠了巨额外债，并且已经用尽了当前的援助来源。
In recent months, it has been running mostly on aid from partners like India, which has doled out about $4 billion. But a crisis of government, with disputed leadership and streets run by protesters, makes the work of diplomacy — including negotiations with organizations such as the International Monetary Fund to restructure the country’s debt — nearly impossible.
最近几个月，它主要依靠印度等合作伙伴的援助，后者已经提供了约40亿美元。但是，政府危机、领导层争议以及街头被抗议者占领使外交工作——包括与国际货币基金组织等机构就重组该国债务进行谈判——几乎不可能完成。
Some of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s allies have made the case that he was only staying on to avoid a complete collapse of government. Sri Lankan law stipulates that the resignation of a prime minister not only disbands the cabinet of ministers, but also relieves the ministerial secretaries — the highest-ranking bureaucrats.
维克勒马辛哈的一些盟友认为，他留下来只是为了避免政府彻底崩溃。斯里兰卡法律规定，总理辞职不仅要解散内阁，还要解除最高级别官员，即内阁部长的职务。
Eran Wickramaratne, an opposition lawmaker, said whoever takes the reins of government will have a difficult time, and ultimately will need to call elections for a new mandate, so that the protest movement and the political process can have an opportunity to converge. The immediate task, though, is ensuring supplies of fuel, food and medicine for the next six months, to create breathing room for medium- and long-term corrections of economic policies.
反对派议员埃兰·维克拉马拉特纳说，无论谁执掌政府，都将经历一段艰难的时期，最终都需要举行选举，以获得新的授权，这样抗议运动和政治进程才有机会融合在一起。不过，眼下的当务之急是确保未来六个月的燃料、食品和药品供应，为经济政策的中长期调整创造喘息空间。
“The focus needs to be easing the burden that people are facing immediately,” he said.
“重点需要是减轻人们当前面临的负担，”他说。
The Rajapaksa family has dominated Sri Lankan politics for almost two decades, dogged by repeated claims of corruption. The current president’s older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, also served as president, ending the country’s long civil war in 2009 through brutal use of military force, leading to allegations of severe human rights abuses.
拉贾帕克萨家族主导斯里兰卡政坛近20年，多次因腐败指控而陷入困境。现任总统的哥哥马欣达·拉贾帕克萨也曾担任总统，于2009年通过残酷军事力量结束了该国长期的内战，导致严重侵犯人权的指控。
After Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president in 2019, he made Mahinda prime minister — his third stint in that post — and two other brothers headed government ministries. The president’s brothers have all stepped down in recent months.
在戈塔巴雅·拉贾帕克萨2019年当选总统后，他任命马欣达担任总理，这是后者第三次担任这一职务，他还任命另外两个兄弟担任政府部门的领导。最近几个月，总统的兄弟们都已辞职。
Opposition leaders made clear Wednesday that they would not accept Mr. Wickremesinghe, 73, as acting president, pointing to his lack of popular or parliamentary support. They want to quickly move to the process of succession prescribed by the constitution in the case of a president’s resignation: that Parliament holds a vote for the top job from among the lawmakers.
反对派领导人周三明确表示，他们不会接受73岁的维克勒马辛哈担任代总统，原因是他缺乏民众或议会的支持。他们希望在总统辞职的情况下，迅速采取宪法规定的继任程序：议会从议员中投票选出总统。
Mr. Wickremesinghe has served several times as prime minister over the last three decades, but his return to the post in May, after protests forced out Mahinda Rajapaksa, was seen as a nearly miraculous political comeback.
维克勒马辛哈在过去30年里曾多次担任总理，但他在抗议活动迫使马欣达·拉贾帕克萨下台后，于今年5月重返该职位，被视为政治上近乎奇迹的回归。
Just three years ago, he lost the majority support of his party in a bitter split, and what remained of the party failed to win even a single seat in the 2020 parliamentary elections. Mr. Wickremesignhe essentially found a back door into Parliament by occupying one of two dozen seats that are appointed and not elected.
就在三年前，他在激烈的分裂中失去了所在政党的大多数支持，该党剩余成员在2020年的议会选举中连一个席位都没赢得。维克勒马辛哈基本上是靠钻空子进入议会，在20多个由任命而非选举产生的席位中占据了一席之地。
President Rajapaksa appointed him prime minister with the backing of his own party, which has a majority in Parliament, in hopes that his experience dealing with international donors could shore up assistance to revive the economy and ease the pressure on his government.
拉贾帕克萨总统在他自己的政党（议会多数党）的支持下，任命维克勒马辛哈为总理。拉贾帕克萨希望他与国际捐助者打交道的经验可以为恢复经济提供援助，并减轻政府面临的压力。
“A member of Parliament with one seat is appointed as prime minister, now the same person is appointed as acting President,” Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition, said on Twitter. “This is the Rajapaksa style of democracy. What a farce. What a tragedy.”
“只有一个席位支持的议会成员被任命为总理，现在同一个人被任命为代理总统，”反对派领袖萨吉特·普雷马达萨在Twitter上说。“这就是拉贾帕克萨式的民主。真是一场闹剧。一场悲剧。”