Person: Ranil Wickremesinghe

පෙරටුගාමී පක්ෂයේ ස්වයං විවේචනය

Amid the decay of every party, Ivan reviews the newly formed Frontline Socialist Party through its 445-page book on the JVP’s path from 1978 to 2012, billed as a self-criticism but really a critique of its parent party. Its young members are committed, he says, but their thinking still lives before the fall of the Berlin Wall, ending with Lenin on the dictatorship of the proletariat. The book romanticises JVP culture without asking why idealistic youth became executioners in 1988–89. He traces a thread through the JVP’s history: after Wijeweera’s disappointing 273,248 votes in 1982, the party never found a leader the public would accept, backing Rajapaksa in 2005 and Fonseka in 2010 for want of its own candidate — a dilemma rooted in race, caste and religion. The FSP must put knowledge before action.

වාද කරන්නට පෙර ප්‍රකෘති සිහිය ඇති කරගැනීම වැදගත්ය

Answering Gamini Viyangoda and Jayatilaka Kammallaweera, who accused him of labelling them and of defending the Rajapaksa regime, Ivan restates his thesis: after losing socialism they adopted the ethnic crisis as their cause and lost their judgement when the LTTE fell, as he once feared a coup under Wijeweera’s spell before 1971. He rejects Viyangoda’s claim that he attacked individuals for twenty years and turned to ‘the system’ only to protect Rajapaksa, noting that his ‘Chaura Rajya’ series on reforming the predatory state ran in Ravaya in 2002, before ‘Chaura Rajina’ (2006), and listing earlier articles on system change. He recalls the Kaha Pati (yellow ribbon) campaign of 2000, the all-party talks on his reform draft in Parliament in 2001, and the 2006 Kobbekaduwa round table, and argues that reform must come by consensus, as Mandela achieved.

25 වැනි සමරුව හා ව්‍යාකූලතා

Ivan reflects on objections, among a few readers and staff, to inviting the President and other leaders to Ravaya’s 25th anniversary. Ravaya’s readers have never held one view, he says: during 1988–89 it refused to use the insurrection to topple the UNP; it helped defeat that government in 1994 but refused to profit from the new one, learning that changing governments does not change the system. The deepest split came over the war against the LTTE, which Ravaya opposed in a way Ivan now calls sometimes unfair and extreme, while he himself saw a just and winnable war; he argues that the UNP obstructed it hoping for regime change, that Prabhakaran and Wijeweera both chose guns over politics, and that the 2010 election left a hatred between the two camps that now blocks reform.

සටන් කිරීම හා අවසාන සටන

Ivan sets out the principles that let him win most of his battles: a just cause, a clear philosophy and plan, careful assessment and preparation, and knowing when not to fight, as Gandhi refused to hamper the Allies in wartime. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene ordered him to stop his ‘Kalinga’ column during the second JVP insurrection and how a calm reply won the President’s respect; how he refused JVP requests for help and armed protection, backed the state against the rebels though opposed to the UNP, and saw every such crisis as no time for regime change. He contrasts Gandhi’s respect for his opponents with the hatred driving Sri Lankan struggles, then tells how he defeated the parliamentary privileges committee’s power to punish journalists by refusing its summons, enlisting Mrs Bandaranaike and international pressure, until the committee adjourned indefinitely.

සටන් කිරීම හා අවසාන සටන

Challenged by a friend who says he has turned from a fighter into a preacher, Ivan explains that his aim now is not a change of government but a change of the political system, which needs the support even of those tied to the evil. Prompted by Ravaya’s 25th anniversary, he lists the eight real battles of his career — against the parliamentary privileges law, the 17-year UNP government, criminal defamation, for the assets law, against two court decisions, an outside Elections Commissioner, a retiring President’s taking of state property, and the limits of book publishing — and says he lost only one, blaming K.N. Choksy’s concession in court. His ten-year struggle with Sarath N. Silva ended without result, he argues, because the Bar, media owners, parties and senior judges such as Mark Fernando stayed silent; Silva never used contempt law against him, which Ivan attributes to the remnant of conscience he appealed to.

යුද්ධය ගැන ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්

Ivan had planned to write about the war as the subject connected to his review of 2005 to 2010 — the de facto state the LTTE ran, the war that ended its existence, and the great changes it has made in the social, economic and political picture. The leadership contest between Ranil and Karu tempted him to write about that instead, and he judged the war the more important thing for understanding the political picture.

2005-2010 දක්වා ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්

The years 2005 to 2010 were a period crowded with events: a great war between the government and the LTTE, and alongside it a great conflict between the government and the opposition movements. Ivan had wanted for some time to write a review of the conflict between those two sides in those five years, and of his own part in it.

මහගමසේකර ප්‍රහේලිකාව හා අර්බුදයට තිබෙන අර්ථකථනයේ දුගීභාවය

Mahagama Sekera was an artist the country loved and respected, of the first rank in several branches of art at once, and the authenticity in his work was the artistic expression of the authenticity in his life. Ivan had a puzzle about him he could not settle for years: why the statue of him at the junction where you enter his village had been attacked, several times, by somebody.

රාජපක්ෂ පාලනයේ හත් අවුරුද්ද

Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went wrong.