මහින්ද, රනිල්, ජෙවීපීය හා සාමය
There may be a contradiction between what was said on the presidential election platform about talks and what the president is doing now, but getting the LTTE to agree to talks, and getting the JVP to a place where it does not oppose them, is a real political victory. Ivan’s argument is that people and parties can learn and change, and that when they change for the better they should be helped and not obstructed.
පළාත් පාලන මැතිවරණය ආණ්ඩුවේ අනාගතය
Chandrika Kumaratunga is acting on the belief that the president will stumble before long and that with Ranil Wickremesinghe weak the public will gather round her again. She had kept her sword hidden, Ivan writes, and has now drawn it. But the local election will favour the president: his popularity has not yet faded, and in a three-cornered contest the advantage that should have gone to the UNP will not.
අන්තවාද දෙකක් මැද ගමන් ගත් සාම සාකච්ඡා
No JVP representative went to Geneva, and the president still managed to get the maximum blessing of the JVP and the Hela Urumaya for the talks — their wishes were weighed even in choosing the delegation. H.L. de Silva, a president’s counsel who holds for a unitary state and rejects the Tamil nation, the Tamil homeland and self-determination, is the measure of how far the president can go with them, and of how far he cannot.
අර්බුදයේ නව ගමන් මගෙහි ඇතැම් ලක්ෂණ
The attack aimed at the army commander has changed the political picture of the ethnic crisis deeply. The LTTE acted decisively to keep Ranil Wickremesinghe out of power at the last election, then called the new president a practical leader and warned that war would be unavoidable in 2006 if there were no quick settlement. The next war will not be fought face to face: it will be short, technological, and capable of enormous destruction in the south.
සාම සාකච්ඡා සහ සමසභාපතිවරුන්ගේ නිවේදනය
Both sides went to Oslo because international pressure left them nothing else to do, and the Co-Chairs’ statement is a sharp criticism of both. Ivan reads it as a charge that neither side takes its own undertakings seriously, and sets beside it a Court of Appeal ruling of startling reach: no act of the president, official or private, may be challenged, questioned or made the subject of a complaint or a case.
සුරන්ජිත් – නූතන මිස්කින්
Ivan first came to know the lawyer Suranjith Hewamanna at a moment when he was in difficulty before the High Court. Under the criminal defamation law — and before it the parliamentary privileges law — the favourite weapon against journalists who displeased governments, the case they won together did not only make the criminal defamation law unworkable; it showed the country that where the Supreme Court will not do justice, other institutions can.
සාම කතා හා පාරමී ඝාතනය
The president telephoned the Colombo office of the Uthayan on Tuesday the 20th, had the editor put on the line, and sent a message through him to the LTTE leadership proposing a secret understanding. The LTTE answered by killing the army’s third in command. Ivan reads that as its answer to the whole approach — and records what the president promised in return about holding the Karuna faction still for a fortnight.
ආණ්ඩුව ගමන් මග වෙනස් කරයි!
Two significant men came to Sri Lanka last week, one from Ireland and one from India. Martin McGuinness — a pioneer of the Irish peace movement, a figure in Sinn Féin and, Ivan writes, the godfather of the IRA — came to meet the leadership of the LTTE and not the president. The Indian foreign secretary saw the president and then the leader of the opposition at length, pressing India’s interest in a larger part in settling the crisis.
එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ සංවිධානය සමග ගැටුමට යන ප්රතිපත්තියක් රටේ යහපතට හේතුවන්නේ නැත
Sri Lanka is being pushed towards a quarrel with the United Nations. Whatever its limits, it is the world body that represents the countries of the world; we are a member of it, we have signed its conventions, and staying a member carries the duty of respecting them. Rather than answer Allan Rock’s allegations against the army with anger, Ivan writes, finding out whether they are true and correcting the fault if they are would do the country’s honour more good.
විමල් වීරවංශ හා කුලභේදය
The savage criticism directed at the JVP’s parliamentary group leader has less to do with his politics than with the caste he comes from. A UNP member said in parliament that there was nothing wrong in getting Wimal Weerawansa to beat the drum at such an occasion but that giving him the official lecture at the literary festival was wrong — and Ivan reads the signal in it exactly. He then makes the same argument about Prabhakaran, who is an opponent of the Vellala before he is an opponent of the Sinhalese.