අද්විතීය බවේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
The government expects a large win in the south, where its base is, but the south is also the most critical province in the country and the uncritical loyalty of six months ago has gone. Ivan sets the president’s standing beside Sarath Fonseka’s — a man made equally singular by the same victory, for whom no office in the country was large enough — and notes how much local politicians’ cut-outs are costing the government in public patience.
යුද්ධය ජයගැනීමෙන් පමණක් රටට ඉදිරියට යා හැකිද?
The victory opened a space the country has not used well. Ivan grants the president the larger share of the credit and then turns to the West’s changed policy, to the covenant on civil and political rights the country has signed, and to Vietnam — which defeated a great power militarily and then spent decades as one of the poorest countries on earth. Jayewardene, he ends, made a hat to fit his own head; Rajapaksa’s task is to make one that fits the country’s.
නිල බලය අයථා ලෙස පාවිච්චි කිරීමට ඉඩදිය යුත්තේ ඇයි?
Six junior officers have been transferred over the abduction and assault of a student at the Malabe technology institute, but the head of the Colombo crime division who directed it has faced nothing. Ivan argues the country needs as firm a policy towards educated men who abuse official power as it does towards uneducated criminals, and asks why the police chief has not acted on the defence secretary’s instruction.
ආරක්ෂක ලේකම්ගේ වන්දි නඩුව හා සන්ඩේ ලීඩර් පුවත්පත
The defence secretary has sued the Sunday Leader for a billion rupees over an article on the MiG purchase. Ivan accepts his right to sue — criminal defamation was repealed on the argument that civil damages would suffice — but argues that the paper’s right to be represented by counsel of its choice is part of a fair trial, and describes how its lawyers came to withdraw.
What Next?
Written after the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009, the piece credits Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sarath Fonseka and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with the victory and turns to what remains: uniting a people divided by race, religion and caste, and settling the ethnic question. Ivan blames the Tamil leaders who first proposed a separate state as much as Prabhakaran, and argues that 1956 could have been handled differently.
ප්රගතිශීලිත්වය හා ප්රතිගාමිත්වය
A philosophical and historical reflection by the author on their controversial support for the state’s harsh military suppression of both the JVP insurrection and the LTTE. Drawing comparisons to the non-violent civil rights movements of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, the author argues that when armed rebellions become devastatingly brutal and jeopardize society, state counter-violence can sometimes be a progressive necessity rather than a reactionary evil.
සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද? විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Sri Lanka’s throat was caught in two nooses, Ivan writes — terrorism and the political system — and the first is nearly loosed. He explains his own shift: he doubted the account that armed struggle followed the failure of non-violent politics, doubted the Tamil homeland claim, and was moved decisively by the LTTE’s treatment of Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had given them more space than any Sinhala leader and whom they destroyed politically. He defends Rajapaksa’s decision as the most important and most dangerous taken since independence, and argues the war could have gone very differently had the LTTE succeeded in mass suicide attacks, a single trap killing thousands of soldiers, or coordinated massacres in fifty or sixty villages. He then judges the opposition, the courts and the press all to have acted without responsibility, and disputes the reported threatening of Poddala Jayantha and Sanath Balasuriya by the Defence Secretary.
අඳුරු වලා මැද රිදී රේඛා
Ivan argues the coming military victory will change the picture of the country. The decision to fight the LTTE to a military defeat broke with every previous government’s policy, taken against a recognised ceasefire, an established belief that only negotiation could work, and the near-universal opposition of the donor group — and Rajapaksa’s resolve in holding to it under sustained pressure was, he writes, unequalled. He will enter history as the first leader in the modern world to prove a terrorist movement can be defeated by war, and if he also answers Tamil grievances, as one who did both. The gains will follow: aid for the north and east, tourism, paramilitaries disarmed, the army turned to building roads, high security zones released to their owners. Credit belongs to the service chiefs, above all the army commander, and to a Defence Secretary who could obtain whatever he asked because he was the President’s brother.
යුද්ධයේ අවසානය අත ළඟය, ඊළඟට කුමක්ද?
The war is near its end. The LTTE will have to abandon the civilians it holds and flee to the jungle within days, and nothing remains to it but surrender or destruction, whether or not Prabhakaran is still in the country. Defeating what Ivan calls the strongest and most terrible separatist terrorist movement in the world should earn the forces the respect of Sri Lankans and the world — and he names those to whom it belongs: army commander Sarath Fonseka, the navy and air force commanders, the Defence Secretary who coordinated it, and the President. This was a merciless war against the LTTE but not a war against Tamils, though it caused them temporary suffering and produced excesses, as the campaign against the JVP in the south did. No war can be fought with human rights wholly intact. With every Tamil leader killed by the LTTE, that people is now left without leaders of its own, and must be cared for until they have some.
Mahinda’s Anti-Tiger War and the Future of the Tamil People
With the army closing on Kilinochchi, Ivan asks what the war means for the Tamil people. No government can concede a separate state or confederation, he argues, and the traditional homeland claim blocks negotiation. He sets the LTTE’s military strength against its political failures and asks who benefits from the war.