යුද්ධය ගැන ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්
Ivan had planned to write about the war as the subject connected to his review of 2005 to 2010 — the de facto state the LTTE ran, the war that ended its existence, and the great changes it has made in the social, economic and political picture. The leadership contest between Ranil and Karu tempted him to write about that instead, and he judged the war the more important thing for understanding the political picture.
බින් ලාඩන් හා ප්රභාකරන් පරාජය කිරීම
America has at last managed to end the life of Bin Laden, the terrorist who held the whole of America in dread. Ivan sets that beside the two Sri Lankan cases — Wijeweera’s second insurrection and the defeat of Prabhakaran — and asks what a war against terrorism is, and where the difference lies.
සරල දේශපාලනයෙන් ඔබ්බට සිතීම
Every outlet but one spoke with a single voice over the Malabe abduction, and Ivan credits that with the arrests that followed. He turns to a pattern in the reporting of the suicide attacks — on Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, on the president, on Sarath Fonseka — in which the bomber was brought to the place by someone inside, and asks whether the parties can think past defeating each other.
ප්රභාකරන්ගේ විනාශය
Prabhakaran’s organisation was thought unbeatable and fell like a great tree. Ivan argues
that had he accepted defeat as Hitler did — taking his own life to release his followers —
the war could have ended without harm to the civilians, and that instead he made them his
shield. Setting him beside Wijeweera, he finds two able men whom a particular political
climate turned cruel, and asks what kind of country would not have done that to them.
ඇත්ත ඇති සැටියෙන් දැකීම
Ivan answers two replies to his article on the genocide claim, apologises for having left a
professor unnamed, and turns to what international law actually says: who counts as a
combatant, what carpet bombing forbids, which three rights survive an emergency, and what
the International Criminal Court could and could not be asked to do. He closes on a
comparison few make — the caste composition of those killed by Wijeweera’s followers and by
Prabhakaran’s, and of those killed by the forces suppressing both.
මහින්ද කොයිබටද?
Whether by luck, practical sense or sheer resolve, Ivan writes, Mahinda Rajapaksa will enter
history as the leader who turned modern Sri Lankan politics. But defeating Prabhakaran
militarily is not enough: he must be defeated politically as well, which means bringing the
country’s Tamils to accept that life within the Sri Lankan state is better and fairer than
life in his separate one. A great leader is not satisfied with half a greatness.
යුද්ධය නපුරුය විනාශකාරීය, ඒ සමඟ එය ඓතිහාසික කාර්යභාරයක් ඉටු කරයි
Answering Ravaya readers angry at his support for the war, Ivan points to Gandhi raising an
ambulance corps in the Boer War and blessing the Allies against Hitler, and argues that the
Second World War was won not by non-violence but by a greater counter-violence. He applies
the same reasoning to the two JVP insurrections and to this one, and — drawing on Michael
Roberts — describes the people held with the LTTE as citizens of a de facto state that ran
its own courts, customs and army on Sri Lankan salaries.