By Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe –

Ajit Rupasinghe

The impeachment of the Chief Justice is an expression of a political vendetta by the Rajapakse regime. It is a ‘gut’ reaction by a rabid bourgeois dictatorship that has got accustomed to unquestioning loyalty and abject servility by each and all to its absolute hegemonic domain. It is symptomatic of a megalomaniacal drive for absolute, undivided, omnipotent power. Beyond the psychological-maniacal dimension is the need to preserve and perpetuate the dynastic-hegemonic rule at all costs, since the manifold crimes of the Rajapakse regime are such that it will incur the pitiless wrath and fury of the masses, even unlike a woman scorned. It must, at all costs, hold on to the reigns of absolute power.

There is a deafening cry from bourgeois liberal opposition forces, joined by some social democratic trends in “Left” disguise combined, to stall the impeachment process and to exonerate the Chief Justice, in the name of protecting the ‘Rule of Law’, the ‘Independence of the Judiciary, and the doctrine of the ‘Separation of Powers’.  The whole debate has centered on the ‘constitutionality’ and legality  of the impeachment process, in an effort to restore democratic governance. At best, the argument of the opposition is that the Rajapakse Regime has crossed the red line and the dreaded dreadnought has to be stopped.

This argument conveniently forgets that every form of bourgeois state is but the exercise of the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (Lenin) ’ dressed up at times in the cloth of bourgeois democracy and alternatively exercised in the form of open fascist rule, as the situation demands. Two armed insurgencies by Sinhala youth in the South and the war of national liberation of the Tamil nation have been drowned in rivers of blood by this bourgeois state, which is claimed to be a ‘five star’ democracy. This is not to mention the daily, routine exercise of terror, abduction, and torture, and the accumulated crimes against Nature and Humanity.

Whether it be the Executive, Judiciary or the Legislature, these tentacles of the bourgeois dictatorship have never defended the rights and freedoms of the people in any fundamental sense. These separate organs of state power have served to promote the illusion of democratic freedom, while preserving and perpetuating the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’. How is that known murderers, rapists, drug lords and war lords, big-time corrupt racketeers, the very scum of the earth, have continued to thrive, while social activists, progressive media institutions and personnel, and revolutionaries have been systematically hounded and killed? Why is that workers, peasants, fishermen, students and any and all genuine opposition forces been terrorized and killed with impunity? How is it that these institutions of democratic governance and the State itself had legally sanctioned the war of genocide against the Tamil Nation and continues to legally sanction  the brutal military occupation and political subjugation?

This very same Chief Justice and the Supreme Court legalized the 18^th Amendment– as an urgent bill-, which crowned the Rajapakse dynasty and gave it a free license to dominate and rule in ‘perpetuity’. Why did she approve of the “Appropriations Bill” as an urgent bill. This CJ denied the constitutionally enshrined right of the workers to strike and protest, denied the right of Rosen Chanaka murdered in cold blood by the State, to a dignified funeral,  denied the writ application against the militarization and politicization of universities? Where does the Supreme Court stand on the blatant massacre of prisoners at Welikada? How come Julampitiye Amare, a reputed war lord and killer roam free? Where are the institutions of democratic governance and the ‘rule of law’ prevail in the face of gross and astronomical corruption and abuse of power? How come degenerate citizens, known  adulterers, the very scum of the Earth,  occupy the position of Chief Justice, as in the recent past?  The judiciary has never been independent. It is an essential and organic part of the rotting and tottering system of neo-colonial fascist bourgeois dictatorship.

Of course, and by all means, the abusive and vindictive assault against the Chief Justice should be exposed in its own right. All those who cherish decency would deplore the level to which the Rajapakse Regime has sunk. This resistance should be situated in the context of moving to  overthrow the Rajapakse regime. That is a call of history. But to try to replace it with yet another version of the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’, which has long since lost its right to exist, is an unpardonable  crime against the people. Those who align themselves with Ranil Wickremasinghe, the butcher of Batalanda and the UNP led Opposition, shall be  equally complicit of the crimes committed, and they shall be held accountable in the tribunal of history.  And so shall the likes of sycophantic, careerists and bootlicking parasites such as  Victor Ivan  and others. The path to freedom lies in mobilizing the exploited and oppressed masses, under the leadership of the proletariat,  as the only unified and invincible force that can bring down the system of imperialist/neo-colonial domination and take the leap forward towards a new era of universal freedom.

*Surendra – Secretary: Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist