යළි මරණ බිය රජ කරන යුගයක්
Ivan rejects the government’s explanation of the attacks on Rookantha Gunathilake, Chandralekha Perera and Anoja Weerasinghe as robbery or private feud, comparing the haircutting to the abduction of Lakbima’s Sri Lal Priyantha and recalling unsolved attacks on photographers, Sarath Kongahage and Lasantha Wickrematunge and the murders of Rohana Kumara and Kumar Ponnambalam. He quotes Chandrika Kumaratunga’s 1994 advertisement pledging to end state terror and says she now travels the opposite road.
52 වැනි නිදහස හා මරණ බිය
The editorial notes that the 52nd independence anniversary arrives as fear of death returns, though ending that fear was a slogan of the 1991 impeachment movement and of the rulers now in power. It lists death threats, murders of local opposition activists, threats to journalists and rights activists, and attacks on a famous actress and a singing couple, and urges all sections to unite as artists did to defeat this campaign before the parliamentary election.
කලාකරුවොත් මරණ බියෙන්
After the presidential election thugs burned down the house of actress Anoja Weerasinghe for campaigning for the UNP, and later raided the Mattegoda home of singers Rookantha and Chandralekha, holding a pistol to Rookantha’s mouth, cutting the couple’s hair and robbing them. Threats have also reached Dharmasiri Bandaranayake and Upulshantha Sannasgala. The piece quotes Weerasinghe likening herself to Hecuba and asks what Vijaya Kumaratunga would have said.
රාවයට වැරදුණේද? ආපසු හැරි බැලීමක්
Ivan defends Ravaya’s critical stance before the presidential election. He explains that the paper promoted Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1992–94 for her reform programme, which she never implemented, and rejects her claim to have ended the fear of death and granted media freedom, recalling how Ravaya defied J.R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa, including publishing the 1988 election petition verdict in advance. He lists corrupted polls under her rule and maintains her win was not a clean mandate.
රාජ්ය මාධ්යයේ ඉහඳ පණුවෝ
Written in Ivan’s own voice, the piece answers the sustained attacks on him and Ravaya by state media and government-funded ‘jungle papers’. He describes how Bennet Rupasinghe and Sujeewa Dissanayake won editorships at Dinamina and Silumina by serving their political master, the minister’s contemptuous nicknames for them, and a former regional correspondent now heading the smear unit. He says he lives on his Ravaya salary and declined posts the government offered.
Individual power disastrous to democracy
The government will not get a two-thirds majority at a parliamentary election. It can reach the number only by enacting a law that permits crossovers and then holding a referendum — which is precisely what was done once before, and this column is about what that cost.
Ranil’s googly: Presidency out or not out?
The opposition leader’s statement is complicated, but what it says is that despite its reservations his party will not obstruct the draft constitution if the government thinks it has no other course. Whether that is a concession or a googly is the question the column turns on.
ජනාධිපතිනියගේ ජාතිය ඇමතීම බණ්ඩාරනායක පවුලේ ඉඩම් අයිතිය හා ඉඩම් සීමා නීතිය
Ivan disputes the President’s claim in her 3 January address that her father owned about 4,000 acres and sold 2,000 for politics. Tracing the Bandaranaike mudaliyar line, the colonial land grants of 1815 and 1818, and figures from Patrick Peebles and the 1927 Ferguson’s Directory, he shows Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike held 1,831 acres. He notes that many families lost more land under the ceiling law, reproducing tables of large native landowners.
මැතිවරණ දූෂණවලට විසඳුමක් නැද්ද?
The editorial notes that armed ballot-stuffing began under the UNP with the Jaffna Development Council poll, while elections from 1991 to 1994 were free and fair. The People’s Alliance promised to empower the Elections Commissioner but has presided over corrupt polls, notably the 1999 North Western provincial election, and never appointed the promised inquiry committee. It calls for an all-party reform of the electoral machinery before the parliamentary election.
ඊළගට වෙන්න යන්නේ කුමක්ද?
Ranil Wickremesinghe has signalled, if awkwardly, that the UNP will not block the People’s Alliance draft constitution, a ‘googly’ to the President. Ivan explains that the draft would force her to give up an executive presidency that answers to neither Parliament nor the courts for a premiership open to criticism and defeat. Refusing would expose her before the public, her own party, minorities and the international community.