අධිකරණ අපහාසය සහ “ලංකාදීප” කර්තෘ
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.
ජවිපෙ කඳ ප්රගතිශීලීය; ඔළුව ප්රතිගාමීය
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 country is going, and how the President ignores the 17th Amendment in disciplining public officers.
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.
දේශප්රේමී පෝස්ටර් හා දේශද්රෝහී පාප්ප
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 Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, Rajapaksa is more likely to win.
Who Wins?
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 opponents methodically and came close to power before the Premadasa government crushed it. Having abandoned armed struggle in 1994 and entered parliament in 2001, the party now holds a share of power it means to convert into the whole. Ivan credits it with persuading the President to seize three ministries and dissolve a parliament the UNP controlled, against her own promise and at the cost of her party, and with using state power and state media unlawfully in the campaign that followed. Each then hoped to use the other and neither can now escape: the JVP cannot leave, the President cannot sack it, and both must ridicule the other to keep their own credibility. Meanwhile the Alliance is bound to a JVP economic programme — state sector, self-reliance, a mixed economy, no privatisation, no interim administration for the north-east — that Ivan thinks belongs to 1970 and has no room in the world today. He expects her to end up playing her father’s part.
The cat is out of the bag
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 26 December 2004 by the Tourist Board and other authorities — which may remain, may be repaired, and may be completed if construction had begun. Victor Ivan concludes the rule applies only to ordinary residents, and that its purpose is to clear the most valuable land in the country for the tourist industry. He notes that a Coastal Zone Management Plan already existed, drawn up by specialists, with a conservation zone varying from twenty metres to more than a hundred according to local conditions, and even anticipating a tsunami; the government consulted neither the Coast Conservation Department nor its experts, who are now unwilling to quarrel with those holding absolute power. Coastal residents and hoteliers had coexisted profitably, he argues, and turning the industry into an occupier will serve neither.
නීතිඥ සංගම් නිලවරණ ප්රතිඵලය: අගවිනිසුරුට එරෙහි ව ඉදිරිපත් වූ විශ්වාසභංගයකි
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. Silva.
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.
පොලිස් මිනීමැරුම් ද?
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 law and the chance to expose those behind them.