Strike grips Lanka

Sri Lanka deployed armed troops as trade unions crippled hospitals, ports and banks yesterday to protest against high income taxes imposed as a precondition for a crucial IMF bailout.

Schools cancelled term tests and outpatient departments at hospitals closed due to the work stoppage that involved more than 40 trade unions. Fewer vehicles were seen on roads.

Dockers at the main sea port in Colombo stayed away while air traffic controllers joined the combined industrial action to carry out "go slow" for two hours affecting at least 14 international flights.

"All considered, our work-to-rule was for two hours, but we will consider a full-blown strike if the government does not roll back the new tax rates," Rajitha Seneviratne, secretary of the air traffic controllers' association, told AFP.

Armed soldiers were deployed at railway stations as well as the port as the government tried to restore minimum services. Dock workers had a tense standoff with the military inside the port, but there were no reports of clashes.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said 20 trains operated to bring office workers to the capital, but unions said it was less than five percent of the daily services.

State-run buses were also operating, the president's office said, but only a few of them were seen on the roads while attendance in schools, offices and factories had dropped sharply yesterday.

The strike came despite a ban imposed by Wickremesinghe last month, and warnings that violators could lose their jobs.