කුණු වළේ බඩ පිනුම් ගැසීම
Ivan contrasts the international significance of the Human Rights Committee’s ruling on a newspaper’s fundamental rights petition with the way much of the Sri Lankan press ignored or belittled it. He describes how his struggle helped push the government to repeal criminal defamation, and calls for an end to the media’s habit of turning on whoever exposes a wrong.
සන්ධාන ආණ්ඩුව දුෂ්කර කඩුල්ලක් ජයගනී
With Arumugam Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress and its eight MPs on board, the alliance government has overcome its lack of a parliamentary majority. The editorial says the President’s hardest task now is to satisfy both Velupillai Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
තොණ්ඩමන් ගනුදෙනුවේ ඇත්ත කුමක් ද?
Reports in the Sunday Leader and the Sunday Times link Arumugam Thondaman’s move to the government to a Water Board IT contract with an Indian company that he approved as a minister. The editorial asks for the facts and warns that a system which buys political support by protecting such deals will drag the country from ruin to ruin.
තිබ්බොටුවාවේ ශ්රී සුමංගල නාහිමියන්ගේ නිර්භීත ප්රවේශය
In a country without leaders who love it, understand its problems or want to lift it up, the Mahanayake of Malwatte has spoken fearlessly: ready for talks with the LTTE, urging both the LTTE and the JVP to avoid extremes, and taking a moderate line on conversions. The editorial sees in him a rare hope, while warning that his road will not be easy.
නිල බලයට හෝ රාජ්ය බලයට සත්යය සදා යටපත් කළ නොහැකිය
Ivan welcomes the Human Rights Committee’s ruling as historic: the first time a Sri Lankan Supreme Court judgment in a fundamental rights case has been answered by an international body. He recounts the criminal defamation indictments brought against him before and after 1994, the Attorney General Sarath N. Silva’s role, the petition argued by Suranjith Hewamanne, his quarrel with Silva over the 1971 case, and other cases now before Geneva.
ශ්රී ලංකා ආණ්ඩුවට එරෙහිව – රාවය කර්තෘගේ පැමිණිල්ල: ජිනීවා මානව හිමිකම් කමිටුවේ තීන්දුව
A Sinhala translation of the Views of the UN Human Rights Committee in Victor Ivan’s complaint against Sri Lanka (CCPR/C/81/D/909/2000) over the criminal defamation indictments brought against him. It sets out the complaint, the State party’s observations and the author’s replies on admissibility and merits, and the Committee’s findings.
Alliance Government Crosses A Difficult Hurdle
Thondaman’s CWC has brought eight MPs to the Alliance, and with three from the SLMC and one JHU monk the government reaches 118 — enough to govern, but thirty-two short of what the President actually wants. Victor Ivan credits her nerve: she dissolved a parliament the UNP controlled, broke her promise to the Speaker, allied with the JVP at the risk of her own party, and won a gamble that had her survival at stake, while the leader of the opposition remained in a world of his dreams. Her remaining aim is to avoid invalidation at the end of her second term, and Ivan judges that despite her stated preference for abolishing the executive presidency she will instead seek to amend it to permit three terms — a course she can justify to the minorities, to her own party and to the JVP in turn. The arithmetic runs through Prabhakaran: satisfying him on the ISGA delivers the TNA’s twenty-two MPs and brings a two-thirds majority within ten UNP defections. The difficulty is pleasing Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
රට මංමුළා වූ ගමනක
Like the floating rupee, the country has been left to drift. The government lacks a majority and agrees on nothing fundamental, and its talk of self-sufficiency recalls the United Front government of 1970–77. The editorial warns of a slide into full crisis.
තෝරාගත් පිරිසකට පමණක් පඩි වැඩි කරන ප්රතිපත්තිය කුමක් ද?
The government promised all public servants a 70 per cent pay rise but has raised only the salaries of appellate and Supreme Court judges, on the ground of an anomaly with High Court judges. The editorial also asks how arrears for lower-court judges were paid without Parliament approving a supplementary estimate.
Government in a Stalemate
Victor Ivan traces the trap the UPFA government has built for itself. Resuming peace talks would solve both its problems at once — the TNA would support it at least from outside, curing the parliamentary shortfall, and the international aid package would ease the economic squeeze. But the JVP promised the country it would block the interim proposals and shut out Norway, and Ivan concedes their refusal is consistent even if wrong. The SLFP, having called the peace programme a treacherous plan to hand the LTTE a separate state, cannot now embrace it either; nor can the President drop the JVP for the UNP, which holds more seats than her own party and could bring down any government it supported from outside. Even the constitutional change for which she dissolved parliament has lost its constituency. Unable to move, the government buys public opinion with concessions the economy cannot fund, driving inflation and interest rates up on Treasury Bill issues and the rupee down. Ivan closes on Norway’s Vidar Helgesen, who likened the war to a frozen iceberg now melting as the talks collapse.