යුද්ධය අවසානයි ඒ බව දැනෙන්නට සැලැස්විය යුතුය
Ending a thirty-year war is a great thing, Ivan writes, but the public has to be able to feel it: the harshness of wartime relaxed, the money once spent on ammunition visibly turned to development, and the A9 open to ordinary travellers. Free and fair local elections in the north would do more for Tamil confidence than any declaration.
දස දහසක් මල් පිපෙන්නට ඉඩදෙමු
Detainees who once bit a cyanide capsule now tell the forces everything they know, which is why weapons caches and LTTE documents are being found in quantity. With no fear of a guerrilla revival, Ivan argues, the restrictions imposed for the war should go, the aid and the IMF loan will follow, and the country can turn to the political reforms that would make it the richest in the region.
යුක්තියේ දෙවොල ගිනි ගැනීම
Harold Laski said a country’s courts measure the civility of its politics. Ivan applies the yardstick and finds it unbearable: politicians who do wrong can at least be voted out, but judges are appointed, and he describes valuable timber confiscated by the courts passed to a friendly monk who sold it and built the chief justice an air-conditioned house.
ජයග්රහණයේ ඵල උපරිම කරගැනීම
The economy will grow simply for the war having ended, but Ivan argues the gains have to be worked for: security relaxed by stages, the paramilitaries and everyone else holding weapons disarmed, and the obstacles foreign investors face — the months an application takes and the bribes paid at each stage — cleared away. The world food crisis, he adds, can be turned to the country’s advantage.
හිටපු අගවිනිසුරු විත්තිකරුවකු වීම
Revision applications against the retired chief justice’s judgments are beginning to queue at the Supreme Court, and Ivan expects the queue to lengthen — though the poor who were punished without even a charge sheet are not in it. He argues that since the Supreme Court is the last place an error can be corrected, it is the institution that most needs to be under continuous scrutiny.
13 වැනි සංශෝධනය
With the war won, the only voice still raised against the 13th Amendment is the JVP’s — a party that once killed people for supporting provincial councils, then contested them, and is now trying to rise again through them. Ivan notes that the president promised to implement the amendment fully and is doing so from a position the JVP cannot easily inflame.
මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස්වරයා හා වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය
The law requires every candidate to declare the assets and liabilities of themselves, their spouse and their children under eighteen, and the elections commissioner has the power to make nominations conditional on it. Ivan asks why he does not use it, and proposes that the declarations be published on the department’s website so the public can read them.
විසඳුම කුමක්ද?
Before the argument about what solution the Tamils are to be given, Ivan writes, comes the
question of the displaced: three hundred thousand people to be housed and fed, with
sanitation and water the immediate problem and disease the risk behind it. Everyone agrees
on equal rights for all citizens regardless of race, religion or caste; the disagreement
begins after that, and on a question of this weight the country needs a common position.
ජාතිවාදය බෙදුම්වාදය හා කල්ලිවාදය
Ivan takes the president’s promise that there will be no more room for separatism — and,
importantly, for racism — as the right formula, since each feeds the other. The victory
should produce humility rather than triumph, and the test of it is whether wrong opinions
are defeated by argument rather than by threat, and whether thinkers, journalists and
artists can say what they think without fear for their lives.
අපි ජයගත්තෙමු. එය ප්රමාණවත් ද?
Twenty-nine of the forty-seven members of the Human Rights Council in Geneva voted with Sri
Lanka and twelve against, which Ivan counts an important victory in the international
argument. Some violation of rights is unavoidable in any war and more so against a terrorist
movement; but the victory has created a humanitarian problem the country cannot solve
without the world’s help, and on that question it should speak with one voice.