ස්වයං විනාශයකට යෑම
Ivan asks why the LTTE demands an interim administration it knows the government cannot grant, and argues that it seeks recognition as an equal state, as it did when excluded from the Indo-Lanka Accord. He recalls that the Accord already conceded much the Sinhalese now resent, and that the JVP, which bombed Parliament in 1987, now backs the President’s resistance. Examining Sinhala Mahavamsa myths and the Tamil claim to the East, he warns that both leaderships are steering the country towards anarchy.
ජපන් ආධාර සමුළුව
Despite the LTTE’s absence, the Tokyo conference pledged $4.5 billion against the $3 billion sought, huge relative to government revenue, though much of it is loans and past aid use has been poor. The editorial finds the Prime Minister’s vision attractive but says good governance must begin with an independent judiciary and a disciplined party, and that the LTTE, having rejected his interim proposal, is unlikely to accept reconstruction outside its control.
අවුල පැලැස්තරවලින් විසඳිය නොහැක
The ethnic conflict needs surgery, not plasters, the editorial argues. Since the New York pre-aid meeting, the LTTE has boycotted the Tokyo conference and rejected the Prime Minister’s interim proposal as a renamed version of one it had already refused. Aid can only be used if trust is restored; granting the interim administration the LTTE wants requires opposition support, and if the main parties cannot agree, the alternative is war.
මරුවා සමග වාසේ
Ivan mocks the daily broadcasting of the inauspicious direction and the superstition peddled by television and even the JVP-backed paper Lanka. He turns the President’s lecture on the decline of politicians against her, tracing how every president since J.R. Jayewardene, including Premadasa, Wijetunga and Kumaratunga herself, used office for money or power, and attacks the costly upkeep of former presidents, now to be extended to former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake.
මින්පසු කොයිබටද?
With the peace talks stalled, the editorial warns that mishandling could make the breakdown permanent and holds both the government and the President-led opposition responsible. Since war failed to subdue the LTTE’s de facto state, it can only be absorbed by recognising its power within a federal arrangement it has said it would accept, with an interim administration meanwhile; treating that as betrayal leads back to war.
ශෘද සාක්ෂිය හිරී වැටීම
Drawing on Daya Somasundaram’s ‘Scarred Minds’, Ivan argues that two decades of mass violence in north and south have numbed the whole society’s conscience. He attacks FM radio stations for feeding the public trivia, likens the ruin of other sports and then cricket itself to the decay of an ageing, politicised bureaucracy, recounts how the 17th Amendment was distorted and is blocked by the President, and reminds Ranil Wickremesinghe of his broken promise of the rule of law.
ජනාධිපති අගමැති ගැටුම කෙළවර කුමක් ද?
Tracing the Development Lottery Board dispute back to the 1978 Constitution, Ivan quotes N.M. Perera’s warning that split control of presidency and Parliament would paralyse the state and invite dictatorship. He recalls Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake turning against the executive presidency, the PA’s 1994 pledge to abolish it, D.B. Wijetunga’s peaceful handover of domestic power, and Kumaratunga’s broken promise to the JVP. Wickremesinghe, a defender of the office he hopes to hold, failed to strike a deal at the height of his mandate and now faces a dilemma.
මුට්ටියට පෙර හොරා යැවීම
Ivan describes Mangala Samaraweera’s push for the President to seize power quickly, possibly driven by a pending case over an attack on poster-pasting youths during the last election, and reads her takeover of the Development Lottery Board as a test of the Prime Minister. He warns that a clash between presidential and parliamentary power could turn bloody, and urges a French-style cohabitation in which the President leaves domestic government to the majority, while faulting the JVP, PA and UNP for opportunism over the 1978 Constitution and the independent commissions.
ජනාධිපතිනිය යන්නේ කොයිබටද?
The President’s reply to the Prime Minister signals that she will ignore her opponents’ mandate and may reshape the Development Lottery Board or even the Cabinet at will. The editorial rejects the government’s rowdy resistance but also her claim that the President’s Fund was endangered, noting she diverted Mahapola scholarship money to it, and contrasts her with Mitterrand and D.B. Wijetunga, who ceded domestic power under cohabitation. It blames the government’s own inaction, including leaving the Chief Justice in place.
ප්රශ්න සමග චත්ගුඩ ගැසීම
With talks stalled and the LTTE rejecting the government’s proposed authority in place of an interim administration, the Japan aid conference will go ahead without it. The piece argues that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s strategy of holding on without resolving anything until the President’s term ends in 2005 cannot satisfy the LTTE or Tamils, that using American backing as a threat is futile, and that he should have reached an honest deal with the President or pro-peace PA forces and informed the public.