වංචාවක් සිදුවීද?
The biggest question raised by the judgment that sent S.B. Dissanayake to prison is whether the Chief Justice deceived him: the evidence suggests S.B. dropped his legal challenge on a promise he never doubted. If so, the editorial asks, how should such a deception be dealt with, and did the other judges know?
අල්ලස් කොමිෂන් සභා නීතිය ගැන නැවත සලකා බැලිය යුතුයි
The Bribery Commission’s term has ended and the new nominees face complaints. The editorial blames weak provisions on its three-member composition, calls the assets and liabilities law a powerful but unused weapon, and notes that the Commission has read the law as if the President need not declare her assets.
අපරාධය හා දඬුවම
S.B. Dissanayake went to court on the 14th expecting a suspended sentence and went to prison. Ivan recalls meeting him with Nihal Jayawickrama in November and warning him that, compared with Rauff Hakeem or the Hela Urumaya monks, he mattered little to the Chief Justice, and describes how S.B. walked into the trap of his own accord.
ජනතා හිතවාදය යට ඇති කූට සැලසුම්
Jobs for graduates, a thousand tanks restored, a relief budget and ten thousand villages uplifted form the populist first round of the government’s show. The editorial warns that the second round will be coercive and violent, aimed at removing from politics those able to lead resistance, though the government itself is not united behind it.
එස්.බී. ට එරෙහිව දෙන ලද දඬුවම
S.B. Dissanayake, UNP national organiser, has been convicted of contempt of court. Although he once threatened to close the courts to push through the People’s Alliance constitution, the editorial argues that two years’ rigorous imprisonment for such an offence would be unjust even from an independent court, and that the law of contempt must be read as it is in the modern world.
ප්රභාකරන්ට දෙන්නට උත්තරයක් තිබේ ද?
The LTTE leader’s Heroes’ Day speech is read as a sharp analysis of southern politics: his differences with the Wickremesinghe government, his view of the President and the alliance, and his warning that Tamils will neither live bound within a Sinhala state nor wish to separate if given freedom. The editorial concludes that the President can neither tame the JVP and talk to him nor break with the JVP and join the UNP.
සාම කතා හා ආණ්ඩුවේ න්යාය පත්රය
Prabhakaran insists that talks begin on the basis of his interim self-governing authority proposals and will not discuss a final settlement alongside them. The editorial notes that the donors’ pledges depend on talks starting and asks whether the government, tied to the JVP, has any agenda of its own.
“දි කිරට කියන බළල් සාක්ෂියක්”: අගවිනිසුරු සහ “දිවයින”
The Sunday Divaina ran a full-page interview with the Chief Justice, conducted by a writer who had earlier defended the Public Trustee. The piece asks why the interview appeared while an estate case involving the paper’s owners was pending before a bench on which the Chief Justice always sat, and whether a judge may use a litigant’s newspaper as his shield.
Does Prabhakaran have an answer?
Victor Ivan reads Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech as a shrewd account of southern politics. The LTTE leader traces the breakdown back to Washington, where the UNP’s participation in the aid conference denied his organisation equal-partner status; he rejects every interim administration draft the government produced, insists talks resume on the LTTE’s own ISGA proposals, and refuses to see an interim authority tied to a final settlement — suspecting the President of wanting to please the JVP, mislead the international community, or simply prolong matters indefinitely. He then challenges every southern party to state publicly where it stands on territory, nationhood and self-determination, and warns that Tamil patience has limits. Ivan judges the ball now in Sinhala hands and finds none of them willing to hold it: Wickremesinghe wanting the talks to last until he is President, the President subordinating the ethnic question to her own invalidation problem, and neither able to move without the JVP’s consent. He closes with a warning that the Sinhala people may come to detest their own leaders enough to say Prabhakaran is good for us too.
බහු පක්ෂ ක්රමයට රතු එළියක්: විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ මර නින්දේ
On the day of the alliance’s first budget, UNP MP Rohitha Bogollagama crossed over and was made a minister. Ivan explains how the law on crossovers is being bent to reach 113 seats, what the government plans for the Speaker and the constitution once it has them, and why the JVP’s ‘red democracy’ is the main prop of the scheme while the opposition sleeps.