කොළඹ නගර සංවර්ධන විවාදය
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Colombo development programme is heavily criticised by the opposition, and at first sight what Ivan sees is a good change that can be felt: the city is cleaner than it has ever been, the rubbish heaps along the main roads have stopped, and not only Colombo 7 where the rich live but Borella and Wanathamulla where the poor live are clean, with the traffic much eased.
යූඑන්පී අර්බුදය
A great deal can be learned from the UNP’s leadership crisis, not only about that party but about the political culture of Sri Lanka. Removing a party leader is extremely difficult: there is no simple, clear method in the party constitution for the membership to use when they want one removed, and nothing about how a group carrying on an internal struggle should proceed — and that is true of every party in the country.
දූෂණය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Answering replies from Shiral Lakthilaka in Ravaya and Wasantha Wijenayake in Lanka, Ivan denies ever certifying the Rajapaksa administration as clean. His argument was that J.R. Jayewardene’s political system was built to reward plunder, so every ruling party since 1977 has been corrupt by design — and the opposition attacks corruption only to reclaim the right to profit from it. He rejects the claim that corruption cannot be proved without rumour, citing Ravaya’s own documented exposures under previous governments. He then turns to the libel suit Gotabaya Rajapaksa brought against Lasantha Wickrematunge over the MiG procurement story, and states that Wickrematunge’s celebrated posthumous editorial was written after his death by another hand.
ප්රගතිශීලිත්වය හා ප්රතිගාමිත්වය
A philosophical and historical reflection by the author on their controversial support for the state’s harsh military suppression of both the JVP insurrection and the LTTE. Drawing comparisons to the non-violent civil rights movements of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, the author argues that when armed rebellions become devastatingly brutal and jeopardize society, state counter-violence can sometimes be a progressive necessity rather than a reactionary evil.
සෝමවංශ සේ ම වීරවංශ ද
The argument inside the JVP matters, Ivan writes, because until it began the party’s spokesmen described it as the cleanest in the country. He reads the sources — Nandana Gunathilaka’s series, Somawansa’s speech at the 1971 commemoration, Weerawansa’s answer in parliament — and works back through the party’s money to the years when its leaders needed intermediaries and protection.
Where the LTTE Went Wrong
Ivan argues that the LTTE, like the JVP in 1989, failed to trade armed struggle for politics when it held the advantage, and helped elect the government now bent on crushing it. He compares Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s role against the LTTE to the ruthless suppression of the second JVP uprising and concludes that armed struggle brings only blood and destruction.
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.
මජරකමද? වැඩවසම් උද්ධච්ඡකමද?
The dispute over luxury bullet-proof vehicles bought under the People’s Alliance, some now missing, shows how selfishly the country has been run. The editorial lists the purchases for the President’s security from 1999 to 2000, costing Rs 1,110 million for cars and perhaps Rs 3,000 million with helicopters, and contrasts this with UNP leaders who faced worse threats without such spending and with meagre budgets for agriculture, labour and irrigation.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද?
Rebutting Tilvin Silva’s claim of success, Ivan uses vote figures since 1994 to show the JVP lost 47 per cent of its 2001 vote in the local elections, worst in Colombo, Puttalam and Kalutara, which he blames on its nationalism and its alliance with the President. He traces how Chandrika Kumaratunga may steer the party through Somawansa Amarasinghe, whose relative Sirisena Cooray is said to have enabled his 1989 escape, citing General Cecil Waidyaratne.
සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ ජවිපෙ රැගෙන යන්නේ කොයිබටද?
Ivan questions Somawansa Amarasinghe’s fitness to lead the JVP. He recounts Amarasinghe’s arrest in the botched 1971 plan to seize Sirimavo Bandaranaike and his switch from anti- to pro-Wijeweera views in prison, and cites Vas Tillekeratne’s statement on Iraqi funding. He asks how Amarasinghe alone escaped in 1989, possibly helped by his relative Sirisena Cooray, notes the JVP’s shifts towards the PA, and criticises a leadership drawn from his home district of Kalutara.