A government, an actor and an audio cassette
The PA government is pushing itself towards political extinction for the sake of a film actor. The disrepute the Channel 9 scandal has brought on the government and on the President who leads it is great, and the story shows how much weight men like Sanath Gunatilleke, who gate-crashed into the PA at the last moment, came to carry.
Politics behind Neelan’s martyrdom
Neelan Tiruchelvam, one of the main authors of the government’s devolution package, was assassinated just as the constitutional amendment carrying it was being brought before parliament ahead of a snap presidential election. The LTTE is plainly responsible — and what Ivan examines is what the government did to make the package unpassable long before the killing.
WANTED: An organized civil movement
This article delivers a scathing critique of “crony capitalism” in Sri Lanka, a deeply entrenched system of state plunder initiated under former President J.R. Jayewardene. The author expresses profound disillusionment with the newly elected People’s Alliance government, arguing that instead of dismantling this corrupt network and recovering stolen national wealth, the new leadership has simply embraced the same wealthy elites who bankrolled their rise to power, leaving the public’s demand for justice unfulfilled.
Wolves in Sheep’s clothing
An open letter congratulating President Chandrika Kumaratunga on a victory won across all communities. Ivan urges her to settle the ethnic question and to recover what the old regime’s cronies took, naming the Nawaloka land payment, the Airbus deal and the Ruhunu Cement sale, and warns that wolves cannot be taught to eat grass.
Thwarting the people’s will can be disastrous
On the eve of the August 1994 parliamentary election, Ivan warns of a plan to use the President’s power over the choice of Prime Minister to name Sirimavo Bandaranaike rather than Chandrika Kumaratunga and split the People’s Alliance. He calls on Mrs Bandaranaike to speak, and predicts the tide against the UNP cannot be stopped.