Reflections on Presidential Elections
Victor Ivan looks back at 2010 and 2015 and then at the man on the 2019 ballot, setting out at length what was done to journalists and soldiers during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s years as Defence Secretary.
Anton Balasingham: He left the Buddha and went to Marx
Written after Anton Balasingham’s death, the piece traces how the LTTE’s theorist moved from Buddhism to Marxism and gave the Tamil struggle the goal of a separate state. Ivan recalls a 1995 dinner in Jaffna with Balasingham, suggests he came to doubt the separatist idea late in life, and urges Tamil militants to reconsider it.
ඇනීටා, ප්රභාකරන් හා චන්ද්රිකා
Prompted by Anita Pratap’s book Island of Blood, Ivan recalls his own part in the 1994–95 peace efforts: prison talks with Tamil detainees after 1971, his view that Chandrika Kumaratunga used the peace issue for Tamil votes, his attempt to broker trust between her and Ranil Wickremesinghe, and a March 1995 Jaffna visit where he helped secure the release of fifteen police prisoners. He also recounts learning from Anton Balasingham of a secret message she sent Prabhakaran through Pratap, and the resumption of war in April 1995.