JOSEPH STALIN STILL OUT ON BAIL
August 20, 2022 -Durt Fibo

Joseph Stalin is at large for now, but technically remains under arrest. “The work of human rights defenders like Joseph has been more important than ever in recent weeks and must be supported, not punished,” says United Nations special rapporteur Mary Lawler.
Reacting to protests demanding his release, Stalin was granted bail on August 8, 2022 by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court, in Sri Lanka. Mr. Stalin is in fact the general secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU), one of the most important trade unions in Sri Lanka’s labor movement, which is at the forefront of the popular uprisings against the government.

Although the country has had the second and third highest GDP in Southeast Asia, corruption, callousness and ineptitude has ruined the economy and crushed it down to a daily life of haulass inflation, power cuts, and shortages of food, milk, medicines and fuels. Sri Lanka has been ruled by one clan for two decades, so the people’s desperation was easily focused. Since April protesters have called for the resignation of the island’s leaders, and on July 12, thousands of people stormed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence in the capital and burned his private residence. The president immediately fled on a military jet to the Maldives while he still had constitutional immunity.

Before escaping, the President had appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president. Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and ordered the military to do “whatever is necessary to restore order” as his office was also overrun by protesters demanding he likewise resign. Since the government refuses to dispose of itself, the people’s demonstrations keep growing. On July 9th almost one million people stormed the new President Wickremesinghe’s mansion.

Stalin, as a major public figure in the opposition, was eventually arrested for involvement in several of the incidents, but he was specifically charged with organizing the May 25-27 rallies at Gota Go Gama (Gota Go Village). GGA, which began began on April 9 outside the President’s House, moved to Galle Face, adjacent to the Presidential Secretariat, and became an unbroken occupy-style protest. The encampment grew despite attacks by weather, state media and police. Approximately 2,500-3,000 people have been arrested and taken away to date. Embarrassingly enough, it was President Rajapaksa himself who, in 2020, declared the area to the left of the Secretariat as a ‘Demonstration Site’. On July 21, the president launched a massive attack of thousands of riot police and armed troops on Galle Face. The International Crisis Group (of Crisis Watch fame) has said the ongoing crackdown on dissent by Wickremesinghe’s government “is worse than any under Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s administration.” Enough damage has been wrought that by now some leading Sri Lanka politicians have urged Wickremesinghe to stop arresting citizens and instead do something –anything– to solve the economic catastrophe.

But before the July 21 assault, according to Stalin: “May 25 was the fiftieth day of protest at Gota Go Gama, so activists organized a big gathering and a march there which thousands of people attended. On May 27, there was a court order that certain people should not trespass onto designated roads, despite the protests not spilling onto any of these roads. My name was added onto a list of people accused of entering specific areas and this served as a pretext for arresting me. Shortly after, police then came into our [CTU] office and took me into Colombo’s Fort Police Station to intimidate me. They kept me there overnight and were supposed to put me before the magistrate the next morning. I had to wait until the following night before they took me to the magistrate’s house where they remanded me.”

Like every child, Joseph entered life as a debt owed to his parents. But their investment in nominative determinism was misspent, for he is neither made of steel nor conspiratorial sinews; this Stalin is a parliamentary democrat. Speaking of improving his countrymen’s lives, he says: ”In Sri Lanka this has to happen through the ballot box and parliament. Another method is a revolution that pushes for sudden radical social transformation. In Sri Lanka, we hope for changes through the democratic system so there needs to be a general election. Our country is not ready to pursue the second option.”