| by Tisaranee
Gunasekara
“You’d wear out a marionette of steel if you pulled
the string and jerked it all day long”.
Diderot (Rameau’s Nephew)
( November 11, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The
impeachment of the Chief Justice is neither the beginning nor the end of the
Rajapaksa-rush towards absolutism. But it does constitute a watershed moment in
that journey, perhaps its final really-existing breaking-point.
 |
The impeachment can be made to boomerang on the Siblings, if the CJ continues to stand firm and our customary indifference does not condemn her to wage this national battle alone.
Whether the impeachment boomerangs
on the Rajapaksas or scythes Lankan democracy depends on how the judiciary,
polity and society, including the non-SLFP parties in the UPFA, respond to
it.
The Rajapaksas are determined to
get rid of the CJ, because she has begun to block their way and cramp their
style. Impeachment is the only possible solution to the Rajapaksa conundrum
that is judicial independence - since doing to a chief justice what was done to
Lasantha Wickremetunga or Prageeth Ekneligoda is not tenable….yet.
A pinprick of light still prevails
in this gathering Cimmerian darkness. By going for the impeachment in such a
ham-fisted fashion, the Rajapaksas have overplayed their hand. Handled
properly, the impeachment can be used to de-legitimise the regime nationally
and internationally, and impose a strategic wound on the Rajapaksa project.
The impeachment can be made to
boomerang on the Siblings, if the CJ continues to stand firm and our customary
indifference does not condemn her to wage this national battle alone.
The impeachment is a mark of
Rajapaksa hubris; it is a result of Rajapaksa-numerical strength and of
Rajapaksa-political weakness. It denotes a break in the Rajapaksa’s Southern
hegemony. The impeachment is symbolic and symbiotic of the Siblings’ inability
to do to the judiciary what they did, with such terrifying success, to the
legislature, the army, the bureaucracy and the SLFP. All those entities
succumbed to that particular Rajapaksa concoction of threats and rewards,
snarls and smiles, with nary a murmur. Until a few months ago, the judiciary
seemed to be headed in the same anti-democratic direction; and the Rajapaksa
power-project seemed totally unassailable.
The Rajapaksas do not want a chief
justice who will cooperate with them some of the time, on some of the issues
(as Shirani Bandaranaike indeed did). The Rajapaksas want a chief justice who
will do their bidding, unquestioningly, on all the issues, all the time. The
Rajapaksas want a chief justice no different from the fawning ministers/parliamentarians,
the subjugated military-bosses and the supine bureaucrats, the sort of mindless
underling they have become accustomed to.
Why the judiciary in general and
the CJ in particular decided to resist Rajapaksa tyranny is for historians to
debate. For us today it suffices that they are doing so. The judiciary, led by
the CJ, is fighting to prevent itself from becoming another pillar of Rajapaksa
power. They cannot win that necessary battle without the backing of all those
who value the rule of law and understand that tyranny becomes destiny only
through default.
The Rajapakses Expose Themselves
According to reports, the
impeachment motion is riddled with errors and inaccuracies – just like
Rajapaksa development and Rajapaksa governance. This shoddiness stems not only
from the Rajapaksa penchant for low-quality, be it in road-building or
parliamentary conduct, but also from the impeachment’s very nature: a
rush-and-rash job, motivated not by a desire for justice but by a raging thirst
for vengeance.
Logically it would have been better
for the Rajapaksas if the CJ continued to do their bidding. Logically it would
have been better for the Rajapaksas if they did not have to impeach the CJ.
Though the Siblings pursued their
power-agenda ceaselessly, from November 2005, they did so while making an
effort to maintain appearances.
They pretended fidelity to such impediments in their path towards absolutism as
the 13th Amendment or
judicial independence because they did not want to reveal, completely, their
real purpose. But with the impeachment (and the growing talk about a 19th Amendment) the Rajapaksas have torn
asunder the veil of deception of their own making and displayed their natural
self to the world.
Interestingly, intriguingly, the
Rajapaksas engaged in this political-disrobing while the world’s attention was
on Sri Lanka via the UPR process.
The Rajapaksa need/desire to axe a
chief justice who finally decided to place the constitution above the will of
the executive is comprehensible. But they could have waited until the UPR
process was over. The Siblings are adept at deception, and in the past they
acted with considerable guile and wile to seduce the nation and hoodwink the
world. Their dexterity enabled them to conceal behind a banal façade the
insatiable ferocity of their power-famish. But this time they decided to go for
the Chief Justice’s jugular, while the world was watching. They could have
waited, mouthing their usual shibboleths for a few weeks more, but didn’t. They
could have used at least a pinch of finesse and a drop of restraint, but
didn’t. Instead, they went for the kill, with bloodcurdling howls and bared
fangs, at once. In doing so, they exposed their true-self, far more repellently
than a thousand critical analyses could have.
Their new normal is demonstrated by
their decision to reject, sans explanations, the unexceptionable
requests by several countries (at the UPR) to respect judicial
independence.
Why did the Rajapaksas act with
such uncharacteristic rashness? Have their Chinese overlords given them a
gilt-edged assurance about their financial, political and diplomatic safety? If
so, what promises did the Rajapaksas make, in return? Or did their fury at an
unexpectedly recalcitrant chief justice make the Rajapaksas abandon sense and
sobriety and lash-out, Medamulana style? Did the Rajapaksas decide to nuke the
CJ because anger made them forget the incinerating impact such a strike cannot
but have on the people, the country and even themselves?
The Rajapaksas are in a hurry; they
want to rid themselves of this CJ and replace her with a tried-and-tested
henchman. It does not require oracular powers to know that all seven UPFA
members of the Parliamentary Select Committee (a careful mix of wolves to maul
the CJ and sheep to bleat indifferently) will find Shirani Bandaranaike guilty.
But if those Lankans who are appalled by this dangerous charade, who understand
its deadly consequences (including to themselves) make their displeasure felt,
that might suffice to compel the left and minority parties in the UPFA to
oppose this most egregious of travesties. If the impeachment gives rise to
societal outrage, if it creates just a few wavelets of dissent in the UPFA,
even a win for the Rajapaksas can become a pyrrhic victory.
Once this CJ is out and her supine
successor is in, the Rajapaksas
can amass every iota of power, constitutionally and legally. To achieve this
end, the Siblings are willing to destabilise the system and confound the
society, to blacken Sri Lanka’s image internationally and cause ordinary
Lankans to suffer a critical loss of confidence in every branch of government.
Under Rajapaksa rule the Rajapaksas
deny themselves nothing, from tax-free sports cars to witch-hunting troublesome
chief justices. The cost is of no moment because the only things that count are
Sibling Power, Familial Rule and Dynastic succession.
Just as Vellupillai Pirapaharan warped Tamil aspirations, undermined
Tamil interests and destroyed Tamil future, in mindless pursuit of his own
megalomaniac nightmare.
