අර්බුදය ගමන් ගනිමින් තිබෙන්නේ කොතැනටද?
For all her mistakes, Ivan argues, Chandrika Kumaratunga may enter history as the leader who finally stood up to the Sinhala racist and religious extremists that every leader before her, her father included, obeyed. He then weighs her options as her term runs out: retirement, dissolution with the risk of impeachment, or giving up the presidency to keep the party and the opposition leadership, and what each would mean for Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe.
තමන්ගේ අය බලා ගැනීම
Sri Lanka’s democracy is more feudal than bourgeois: voters choose parties not for policies but because ‘our party will look after us’, and are rewarded with privileges when it wins. The editorial calls this corrupt system a cause of the country’s misfortune and a barrier to civil society.
රට තිබෙන්නේ ඛේදජනක තත්ත්වයක යි
With the JVP gone, the government has no majority. The forces gathered around the alliance had no vision beyond defeating the UNP, the parties have no internal democracy and train autocrats, and although an election is near, the Elections Commission has still not been set up.
කපුවා කපෝති ද?
Three notes. Mangala Samaraweera, who brought the President and the JVP together and taught the JVP that it could capture the SLFP after Chandrika, now faces the collapse of his work; the Hela Urumaya’s crocodile tears for Major Muthaliff; and the Lankadeepa editor Siri Ranasinghe’s apology to the Supreme Court over the UNP statement.
රට නැවත යන්නේ යුද්ධයකට ද?
The ceasefire created good conditions for a peaceful settlement, but the country failed to use them and is now being pushed towards settling matters by war. The alliance never had one view of the conflict, and the editorial warns that starting a war is easy but will bring only destruction.
වෙරළ තීරයේ ඉඩම් කොල්ලකෑමට ඉඩ දෙමු ද?
Businessmen close to the government have begun using the tsunami to seize thousands of acres of valuable coastal land, confirming suspicions raised when the buffer zone was declared without reason. The editorial is not against foreign investment, but calls on informed citizens to force the government to abandon the scheme.
පාසල් ප්රශ්නය හා කූට ලේඛන
A Royal College teacher’s admission of her child on a false birth certificate has filled the papers. The editorial agrees that forgery is a serious offence but notes that it has become normal in the race for school places, and argues for reorganising the school system rather than hunting down parents.
වෙරළ ආරක්ෂක කලාපයේ යථාර්ථය
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 may cost her only the executive presidency.
නීතියේ පාලනයක් නැති අරාජික රටක්
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 says the rule of law will come only when it is applied to the sharks, not the sprats.
සිවිල් සමාජ ව්යාපාරයක් ඇති කරගැනීමට සුදුසු කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
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 the public good.