සෙන්පතියන් ගොළුවීම
Ivan describes how a petitioner who appeared without a lawyer was jailed for a year for contempt by a bench including two respondents to his petition, just as the Attorney General was drafting a law defining contempt at the Editors’ Guild’s request, and asks why the Guild and most media stayed silent. Short items follow on arbitrary VIP death compensation, a study of LTTE tax revenue, and the JVP’s dilemma over the PA’s 2000 regional-council package.
සරත් එන්. සිල්වා මහතා අධිකරණය කෙරෙහි ඇති කර තිබෙන විනාශය සුළුපටු නැත
As impeachment proceedings open, Ivan traces the crisis to Sarath N. Silva’s appointment while two disbarment complaints, one by Ivan himself, were pending, despite warnings from Chief Justice G.P.S. de Silva and senior lawyers. He recounts how Silva halted those inquiries, packed the bench hearing challenges to his appointment, narrowed fundamental rights jurisdiction, and was linked by phone records to Rohana Kumara, alleged mastermind of the Wijekoon murder, and to a fraudulent petition for the gunman Nupul Kumara.
ජනාධිපතිනිය දූෂිත ද?
As the President offers to answer opposition charges in Parliament herself, Ivan argues that a leader must dispel public suspicion created by her inner circle. He sets out the evidence that BOI chairman Thilan Wijesinghe sought a $1 million bribe over the Galle flour mill, Rajan Asirwatham’s conflicted role in the Kotagala plantation sale, the unseen influence of Ronnie Peiris behind highway and Diyawanna projects, and the government’s refusal to release ministers’ asset declarations.
Donor reaction can compound matters
Winning the parliamentary election somehow was a condition of political survival for the PA, and above all for the President and the presidential system. National and international pressure for a clean election was greater than ever before, and the methods used were autocratic and violent anyway.
ස්ථාවර ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටුවීම අසීරුයි
Ivan calls the October 2000 poll the biggest ballot plunder in parliamentary history, yet the People’s Alliance won only 107 seats and lacks a majority even with the EPDP. He compares the 1994 arithmetic, notes the Muslim Congress’s resentment after Ashraff’s death and his National Unity Alliance’s four seats, and warns that EU observers’ findings could hit aid or bring sanctions. The JVP emerged strong and disciplined, the UNP was complacent, and the Sihala Urumaya was routed.
අෂ්රොෆ් ඔබට ආයුබෝවන්
A tribute to M.H.M. Ashraff, whom Ivan calls the most colourful Muslim leader since independence. He links Ashraff’s stand on Muslim identity to the concentrated farming Muslim community of the east, and recounts how in 1988 Badiudin Mahmud persuaded Sirimavo Bandaranaike to drop him from an opposition pact, driving him to back Ranasinghe Premadasa. Ivan recalls that Ashraff gave Chandrika Kumaratunga her 1994 majority yet privately criticised her, and that he publicly reversed his defence of Sarath N. Silva’s appointment after studying the documents.
An election with democracy turned upside down
The SLMC leader told the President that winning a corrupt election would blemish not only her but her children, and that losing a free one would be more honourable. She assured him there would be a clean election. This column sets that assurance against what was being arranged in the districts.
Clinging on to a dictatorial presidency
If there is a country anywhere in the world where a dictatorial ruler is elected by popular vote, it must be Sri Lanka. J.R. Jayewardene built the system by discarding every sensible feature of the American and French models and keeping only the diabolical ones — after which he said the one thing he could not do was turn a woman into a man.