ආර්ථික අර්බුදය හා රාජාණ්ඩු දේශපාලනය
As prices soar, the government has used police against a JVP protest while fishermen strike and the UNP turns to agitation. The editorial blames poor governance rather than external factors, citing the flour subsidy before the 1994 election, misdirected Samurdhi payments, unmetered electricity users, lost port revenue after the President moved to the Fort residence, the French locomotive deal and a Rs. 2,500 million new presidential palace, and calls for an open democratic system.
අර්බුදය ගැන ආපසු හැරි බැලිමක්
Answering a reader who asks why Ravaya keeps writing about Sarath N. Silva, Ivan retells how his suspicions began with the Lenin Ratnayake affair: the rape allegation reported in 1997, police findings that Ratnayake had been dismissed from the Insurance Corporation for fraud, and a confidential 1998 report in which Silva as Attorney General shielded him. He describes the Bar’s past presidents’ resolution, the inquiries that found Ratnayake and Upali Abeyratne guilty, his own disbarment petition, and Silva’s appointment as Chief Justice, and calls for his removal.
නපුර ජයගැනීම
Sri Lanka signed the UN Convention against Torture and passed a torture law in 1994, yet political torture has grown. Ivan cites the case of beautician Ivan Turner, detained as an alleged LTTE suspect and humiliated by senior police officer Bandula Wickremasinghe, whose only punishment was a transfer. Borrowing Bishop Frank Marcus’s phrase ‘evil rule’, he argues that Kumaratunga, like Jayewardene and Premadasa, rules through partisanship, and that only democratic reform can end it or allow the ethnic question to be seen democratically.
මහජන මුදල් සමග සෙල්ලම් කිරීම
While development spending is cut, Lake House spent Rs. 5 million printing 290,200 copies of a photograph of the President and her children for free distribution with Silumina and the Sunday Observer during the parliamentary election. The editorial ridicules Chief Government Whip Reggie Ranatunga’s claim in Parliament that the public had asked for it, and says the money would have been better spent on exercise books for poor schoolchildren.
අධිකරණයේ අර්බුදය හා නීතිඥ සංගමය
Responding to the Bar Association’s criticism of the Sunday Leader and Ravaya, Ivan names the lawyers said to have attended a meeting at Temple Trees where President Kumaratunga discussed the UNP’s election petition and asked that a judge she had accused of taking a bribe be removed from the bench hearing it. He recounts the Vinsendra Rajan fundamental rights case, Sarath N. Silva’s land request while serving on the Vijaya Kumaratunga murder commission, and his appointment as Chief Justice, and says the Bar must defend judicial independence.
ජනමාධ්‍ය නිදහසට එරෙහිව සාපරාධී අපහාස නීතිය
Although its first media minister Dharmasiri Senanayake called the People’s Alliance a government brought to power by journalists, it has reformed only parliamentary privilege law and, instead of repealing criminal defamation, filed twelve cases against editors, six of them against Ravaya. Sinha Ratnatunga and Lasantha Wickrematunge were convicted of defaming the President, who never testified. The editorial contrasts English practice and the Salman Rushdie episode, cites New York Times v. Sullivan, and notes that the 1996 recommendations of the R.K.W. Goonesekere committee were ignored.
ආණ්ඩුව ඉන්නේ අන්තෝ ජටා බහි ජටා තත්ත්වයකය
Ivan says the People’s Alliance is trying to hide its sins behind peace talks without preparing the ground. It rewarded poll offenders, its pledge to recall MPs’ liquor licences is a lie when some ministers hold seven, and the President ties the four commissions to her constitution. He recounts the farce of cabinet-making, from Anuruddha Ratwatte’s return as Deputy Defence Minister to the splitting of the deputy finance post between G.L. Peiris and S.B. Dissanayake. With a four-vote majority and a failing economy, he expects the Chief Justice’s impeachment to be the first shot.
එජාප බැරී බැරී රෝගයට පිළියමක් සොයාගත යුතුය
Ivan likens the UNP’s dealings with the People’s Alliance government to a hereditary serf’s timidity before his lord. Though the Elections Commissioner, religious leaders, PAFFREL, the election-violence monitors and EU observers found the October 2000 poll unfair, the UNP chose to ‘let bygones be bygones’ and filed half-hearted petitions. He recalls, from Prins Gunasekera’s book, how Sirimavo Bandaranaike withdrew as petitioner against the 1982 referendum, leaving Rohana Wijeweera to file, and asks why the UNP stayed silent on Sarath N. Silva’s appointment and on the 1999 presidential poll.
දේශපාලන සංස්කෘතිය ගෞරවනීය තැනකට ගෙන ඒම පළමුවෙන්ම සිදුවිය යුතුය
The TULF objects that the PA–UNP consensus agenda covers democracy but not the ethnic question. Ivan agrees a settlement is vital but says it needs cross-party consensus, impossible while ruling parties use state power against rivals: the UNP stripped the SLFP leader’s civic rights and banned the JVP, and the PA humiliated and split the UNP and harassed the JVP. He calls for a level field, beginning with a judiciary freed from the executive and a new Chief Justice, laws against persecuting opponents, and the disarming of armed parties.
රාජසන කතාව හා ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය
The editorial says the President’s throne speech covered much but ignored the real problems of democracy. It cites the Elections Commissioner, PAFFREL’s finding of gross malpractice in 22 electorates, the election-violence monitors’ call to annul 17 results and EU observers’ ratings of polling stations, against her claim to have revived democracy since 1994. Consensus against Prabhakaran’s terrorism, it argues, requires first ending the state terror and electoral fraud of every ruling party since 1977, and the opposition must take up a practical reform programme.