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අධිකරණ අපහාසය සහ “ලංකාදීප” කර්තෘ
Victor Ivan
Ravaya
MPs cannot change parties without losing their seats, yet none who crossed to the government has lost his. The editorial observes that the Chief Justice's closest friends suffer most from his political theatre, and argues that Siri Ranasinghe committed no offence by publishing the UNP's statement criticising the Bogollagama judgment.
Ravaya criticised the 100/200-metre buffer zone from the start, because such a law would ruin the survivors. The piece shows how it breaches eleven basic principles of two international covenants, then examines the roles of the JVP, of Ranil Wickremesinghe and a stagnant UNP, and of a President whose strategy
The JVP deserves credit for bringing the rural Sinhala youth of no privilege into politics, but Rohana Wijeweera's picture of politics as a musical chairs between two walauwas missed the historic change from feudal society to the modern state. Short sections follow on the President's newest song, aid thieves, where
The JVP has the country's best poster machine and spends more on posters than anyone. Ivan mocks its latest campaign, then turns to the question of who the alliance's presidential candidate will be: the President will not give up her wish to avoid irrelevance, but in a close contest between
The train and bus collision at Yangalmodara was no accident of chance: the roads were run in a way that invited it. The editorial finds the same lawlessness everywhere, from a head of state and an opposition leader who do not respect the law to MPs selling duty-free cars, and
Victor Ivan reads the JVP's place in the Alliance government as a third attempt at the ambition two rebellions failed to deliver. The 1971 rising, aimed at simultaneous attacks on police stations across the Sinhala areas, Sirimavo Bandaranaike's government put down in days; the second, seventeen years later, killed its
Two TAFREN advertisements, four days apart, expose what the 100-metre coastal building ban was for. The first, on 27 February, told the country that homes destroyed inside the zone could not be rebuilt and that the government would provide 500-square-foot replacements. The second, on 2 March, exempted buildings permitted before
The failure to manage the tsunami's damage is creating the conditions for a 'political tsunami', a near-anarchy in which citizens no longer obey the state or the parties. Ivan argues that the moment has come for a civil society movement built by joining the many people's organisations already working for
Though only lawyers voted, the Bar Association election was as important as a general election, because the Supreme Court had become the centre of political power. The editorial reads Desmond Fernando's late entry and victory over the Chief Justice's trusted ally as a vote of no confidence in Sarath N.
The assassination of Kaushalyan, the LTTE's eastern political leader, amid the wreckage of the tsunami is a bad omen. The government condemned it as an attempt to wreck its efforts to reach agreement with the LTTE, but the editorial warns that it has changed the course of events and feeds
In recent weeks many underworld figures have been shot by police 'while trying to escape' or 'attacking officers'. The piece notes the distress of the politicians who hired such men, explains why suspects first run to their patrons, and argues that killing them in custody destroys both the rule of
Nearly 50,000 dead and close to a million displaced in under an hour: Ivan argues that a disaster of this scale should make the parties see that none of them can solve it alone. Events are defying everyone's calculations and leave no room for heroes; only a joint national programme
The JVP is caught both ways: it perishes if it stays in the alliance and perishes if it leaves. Sidelined in the tsunami effort and critical of the power given to Tara de Mel and Harry Jayawardena, it cannot break with a President who is equally unhappy with it.
JVP and SLFP local leaders in Galle are fighting over who will build the town's bus stand: the JVP says the SLFP chief minister's Rs 4.1 million plan could be done for Rs 500,000. Despite lamps lit together for unity, the editorial finds no unity even within the government, and
A month on from the tsunami, Victor Ivan warns that mishandling the recovery could produce a political tsunami destructive to the government and the opposition alike. He attacks the 100-metre coastal buffer imposed by TAFREN: damage reached 400 metres inland at Telwatta and in Galle town while some houses at
Newspapers do not govern; they can only show politicians and the public the real state of the country. Under the subhead 'The need to leave the dream world and see reality', the piece argues that caring for tsunami survivors is the shared duty of government, opposition and public, and that
In Galle, a gang that robbed a woman of her jewellery as she was swept away on the day of the tsunami was caught by local people, who beat its leader to death before the police arrived. However brutal the man, Ivan argues, the crowd took over the work of
Instead of using the tsunami to rebuild, the country is doubling the damage. The editorial attacks the coastal buffer zone that bars survivors from returning to their land, points out that most were freehold owners, not squatters, and argues that those able to rebuild on their own land should be
Not even the tsunami has changed the country's inefficient, corrupt course or its divisive thinking. The first shock released a flood of human kindness, but the editorial warns that thinking confined to the tsunami could deepen divisions, and calls for thinking on the scale of the moment.
The National Planning Department's reconstruction plan puts the cost at US$1.5 billion (Rs 145.5 billion). The piece sets out the plan's figures by sector and district and argues that the challenge can be met only by a national programme that unites the country's strength and knowledge.
