නිදහසේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
On the 54th Independence Day, Ivan laments that freedom won without struggle left Sri Lanka without the attitudes or institutions to hold its communities together. Contrasting its record with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India, he cites negative growth, 15 per cent inflation, war costs and some 100,000 deaths, and argues that no leader since 1948, Sinhala or Tamil, has won the respect of all communities.
The dilemma of independence
More than five decades have passed since independence, and the fifty-fourth anniversary has to be marked with sadness rather than pleasure. What the country has done with its freedom, measured against the neighbours who started level with it, is the subject.
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.
රිචඩ් සොයිසා ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්…
Replying to C.A. Chandraprema, an Island editorial, Justice Minister Batty Weerakoon and a state radio campaign against the Alliance for Democracy, Ivan explains his earlier remark on Richard de Zoysa. He recounts what a senior police investigator and a close friend told him: that de Zoysa was an active JVP supporter whose borrowed house sheltered Somawansa Amarasinghe, and that he was translating Wijeweera’s book on Eelam when abducted. He insists the murder was unjustifiable, discusses the class dimension of its prominence, and says his views are his own, not the Free Media Movement’s.
The Richard factor in the FMM
A mention of Richard de Zoysa in an earlier article, questioning the purpose of a government photographic exhibition, has become a great controversy. This is Ivan’s answer to it, and the most personally exposed thing he wrote in the Sunday Times.
ප්රභාකරන්ගේ ඊළග පියවර කුමක් ද?
The editorial argues that the LTTE is trapped not by military strength but by a world order that no longer legitimises armed struggle, as the fall of Elephant Pass and the outside help that saved Jaffna showed. Mandela, the PLO, the IRA and the JVP adapted; governments that crush just grievances also face isolation. It assesses Prabhakaran as a gifted but ruthless commander, groups him with Wijeweera, Premadasa and Vijaya Kumaratunga, and says a turn to peace would multiply his strength.
Will Prabhakaran take the peace path?
The LTTE and its leader are stuck in a quagmire and finding it hard to keep the violent struggle going. Whether Prabhakaran can take the path of peace, and what it would cost him to try, is the question — and Ivan’s answer is neither hopeful nor hostile.
එජාප බැරී බැරී රෝගයට පිළියමක් සොයාගත යුතුය
Ivan likens the UNP’s dealings with the People’s Alliance government to a hereditary serf’s timidity before his lord. Though the Elections Commissioner, religious leaders, PAFFREL, the election-violence monitors and EU observers found the October 2000 poll unfair, the UNP chose to ‘let bygones be bygones’ and filed half-hearted petitions. He recalls, from Prins Gunasekera’s book, how Sirimavo Bandaranaike withdrew as petitioner against the 1982 referendum, leaving Rohana Wijeweera to file, and asks why the UNP stayed silent on Sarath N. Silva’s appointment and on the 1999 presidential poll.
කඩුවේ අභියෝග ජයගැනීම
Ivan argues that S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Only policy, by confining youth to Sinhala, fed the two southern insurrections led by Wijeweera and the Tamil separatist struggle under Prabhakaran, whereas Indian leaders kept English for higher education. He welcomes compulsory English at A-level but calls English-medium science in 560 schools from 2001 reckless, given teacher shortages and a 64% O-level English failure rate in 1995. He proposes model schools and a state-funded eight-month English and computer course for the 35,000 annual A-level passes, run through international schools.
A wake up call to main opposition
The opposition transacts with this government the way a serf transacts with his feudal lord. The serf’s manner before his master is timid: he could not protest even when his wife or his daughter was taken. Timid talk about four commissions will not revive a decaying democracy.