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President’s Fund draws instant money
Victor Ivan
The Sunday Times
The Prime Minister has told parliament that the President's Fund need not table its accounts because no money is allocated to it from the consolidated fund. That statement misled parliament and the public both, and will feed the doubts people already have about the fund.
As the President offers to answer opposition charges in Parliament herself, Ivan argues that a leader must dispel public suspicion created by her inner circle. He sets out the evidence that BOI chairman Thilan Wijesinghe sought a $1 million bribe over the Galle flour mill, Rajan Asirwatham's conflicted role in
The Presidential Secretary called English-press reports on bribery allegations against BOI chairman Thilan Wijesinghe malicious. The editorial notes that Wijesinghe's petition names Ranjith Atukorale, introduced by Minister Mangala Samaraweera, as seeking a $5 million bribe in the names of the President, Samaraweera and Wijesinghe over a Galle flour mill, that
Making corruption possible in a democratic country
Victor Ivan
The Sunday Times
The President told a government party meeting that she planned to go to parliament herself to answer the opposition's accusations over the Katunayake expressway, the Diyawanna golf links land and the Thilan Wijesinghe bribery case, because her ministers were not replying well enough.
Peace talks with the LTTE are due in early May, driven by international pressure after foreign help stopped the Tigers taking Jaffna. Ivan argues that the LTTE now knows Eelam will not be accepted and has softened its claim to be the sole representative of Tamils, but doubts the government's
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Central Provincial Council poll in Ududumbara, Pathadumbara, Hewaheta and Galagedara was grossly corrupt and that the Elections Commissioner violated petitioners' rights by not cancelling voting at all 23 polling stations, whatever obstruction he faced. The editorial applies the Court's words, that the law
Replying to C.A. Chandraprema, an Island editorial, Justice Minister Batty Weerakoon and a state radio campaign against the Alliance for Democracy, Ivan explains his earlier remark on Richard de Zoysa. He recounts what a senior police investigator and a close friend told him: that de Zoysa was an active JVP
A mention of Richard de Zoysa in an earlier article, questioning the purpose of a government photographic exhibition, has become a great controversy. This is Ivan's answer to it, and the most personally exposed thing he wrote in the Sunday Times.
Violent crime is blamed on army deserters, but the piece argues that the link with politicians' security details is stronger. More than 3,000 personnel protect politicians, including 1,500 in the Presidential Security Division, and known criminals have been enrolled as auxiliary police on political recommendation, using their freedom from checkpoints.
Mutual hatred and fear of reprisal stop parties from agreeing on national problems. The editorial reports the Alliance for Democracy's all-party meeting in Parliament on its eleven-point reform programme, attended by Mahinda Rajapaksa, Rauff Hakeem, the UNP, JVP, TULF, TELO and Tamil Congress, where all agreed that the presidency should
Some problems a governing party cannot solve alone, and some cannot be solved without the agreement of all the parties. In a country with many of the first kind, the main challenge of its politics is how to reach the second kind of agreement.
Ranil Wickremesinghe attacked the Rs. 2,500 million presidential palace and its imported oak, marble and chandeliers; Mangala Samaraweera replied that the Bandaranaikes, born in walawwas, need no palaces. Ivan distinguishes royal palaces from the walawwas of radala nobility, notes that the Bandaranaike and Jayewardene fortunes rested on land granted for
Ivan surveys reform proposals from parties and civil society: the UNP's four independent commissions, the JVP's call to abolish the executive presidency and for a state media commission, and the Alliance for Democracy's conditions for reforming the presidency, on dissolution, appointing the Prime Minister and Cabinet, expulsion of MPs and
During the President's visit to the Netherlands, a lawyer for Tamil refugees sought a court order for her arrest under the Convention against Torture; the Dutch court rejected it only because it was not properly framed. The editorial draws the lesson that rights violations, attacks on democratic rights and plunder
The political system has fallen so low that reforms are now demanded not only by political parties but by civic organisations. What is on the table — the commissions, the media provisions, the end of the rule that costs an expelled member his seat — and what it would take
Taking up newly appointed Supreme Court judge C.V. Wigneswaran's remark that promotions depend on executive favour, Ivan argues that the executive has captured the judiciary. He lists cases in which the Chief Justice sat on politically sensitive petitions and ruled for the government: Karu Jayasuriya's election-time petitions against Lake House
Justice Minister Batty Weerakoon told Parliament that the Bribery Commission is investigating a top Defence Ministry official over arms deals but refused to name him. The editorial says the official should be suspended by the President, under whom the ministry falls, notes that war spending has risen from Rs. 4,000
Two important observations on the Sri Lankan judiciary were published last week. One is in the latest American human rights report, which says the Chief Justice has cut the number of human rights cases the courts examine on the pretext of preventing a backlog — denying redress even to people
The editorial argues that the LTTE is trapped not by military strength but by a world order that no longer legitimises armed struggle, as the fall of Elephant Pass and the outside help that saved Jaffna showed. Mandela, the PLO, the IRA and the JVP adapted; governments that crush just
A severed head and hand from a corpse were delivered to the homes of UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake's wife and mother, an evident warning to an active opposition politician. The piece notes that the police have not traced the body, likely taken from a morgue, recalls how political interference stalled
