විදේශ ප්රතිපත්තිය නිවැරදි කරගැනීම
The government appears to be retreating from its strongly anti-Western foreign policy, built on the belief that world power is passing to China. That shift, Ivan argues, is neither imminent nor China’s alone, since India is also rising, and the US works to weaken states aligned with rival powers. A small country on a strategic sea lane should stay out of rival camps, stay friendly with all, and above all keep India’s trust. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene’s hostility to India, including an insult to Indira Gandhi, led India to back Tamil militants, halt the Vadamarachchi operation and air-drop supplies, and how India’s support was decisive in the final war. Having promised 13-plus, Sri Lanka must either deliver or offer a credible alternative, and build friendship with Tamil Nadu as well as New Delhi.
අභියෝගය ජයගැනීම
Whatever the wrongs and shortcomings within the counter-campaigns launched to defeat the terrorist war Prabhakaran led and the terrorist war Wijeweera led, had those campaigns failed and those two movements won, what could have followed was a great destruction. In that sense, Ivan writes, whatever their faults, those campaigns protected the country’s existence.
මහත්මා ගාන්ධි ඝාතනයේ 63 වැනි සංවත්සරය වෙනුවෙනි. ගාන්ධි ශ්රී ලාංකික අපට අදාළවන්නේ කෙසේද?
Gandhi can be called the greatest theorist the world has produced on popular struggle for social justice, and its greatest fighter. Before he introduced his non-violent tradition the world had only a method of fighting evil with evil; he gave it a way of defeating evil without becoming evil, and proved it worked by testing it in an enormous and complicated society.
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.
විදේශ ප්රතිපත්තිය නැවත සලකා බැලිය යුතුයි
The foreign secretary was told to appear in person for a British visa, which the government reads as a breach of diplomatic courtesy. Ivan agrees the government’s position is right and argues that being right is not enough: a small country gains nothing by quarrelling with the Western world, and he recalls what calling Indira Gandhi a cow cost the country under Premadasa.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනය හා මැතිවරණ කොමිසම
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment
requires, because Chandrika Kumaratunga refused to appoint one and the refusal has outlived
her. Ivan sets the Indian Election Commission against it — its own budget, its own
quasi-judicial powers, 668 million voters and 800,000 polling stations — and argues that an
amendment bolted on to a constitution built around an unaccountable president was never
going to hold.
අධිකරණයේ අර්බුදය ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
Ivan argues that an independent judiciary must protect citizens, not the government, when popular sovereignty is threatened, citing Kuldip Singh’s court under Indira Gandhi. Under Sarath N. Silva the Supreme Court has become the executive’s tool: he packed the bench on the electoral bill, blocked Karu Jayasuriya’s media petitions, reversed the growth of fundamental rights jurisprudence by assigning cases to himself, and dismissed over twenty judicial officers. No reform or ethnic settlement is possible until this is remedied.
Can India be a genuine aide?
India has said it is ready to intervene as a third party if both sides ask. Both sides have stayed silent; only some of the bhikkhus who once rose against the Indo-Lanka Pact, and the leader of the opposition, have answered favourably. Whether India can be a genuine helper is the question the column puts.
ඉන්දියානු මැදිහත් වීමක් විසඳුමක් ඇති කරලීමට සමත්වේද?
Ivan argues that India, itself a party to the crisis, cannot really resolve it. He traces the conflict to Sinhala Only under S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and university standardisation, and to India’s training and arming of Tamil militants in reaction to J.R. Jayewardene’s policies, which Indira Gandhi failed to see would cost her son’s life. Neither a ban on separation nor a merged North-East would satisfy both communities, and no party offers a lasting vision.