මාධ්ය නිදහස ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
Taking up Lasantha Wickrematunge’s criticism of editors for hiding wrongdoing by the powerful, Ivan welcomes the repeal of criminal defamation and planned media reforms but says freedom means little without responsibility. He recounts how most papers protected magistrate Lenin Ratnayake and Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and faults the Editors’ Guild for silence on the Leader ban, the President’s claim that a minister plotted to kill two editors, and the layered cover-up of attacks on journalists under the last government.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනයට කොකා පෙන්නීම
Ivan explains that the 17th Amendment gives the Constitutional Council power over the independent commissions and top appointments, yet the President has still not named her nominee despite Article 41(5). He argues that she is protecting her hold over the Chief Justice, Attorney General, IGP and Bribery Commission, since a council would weaken her defence against impeachment and against the Padiyapelella rocket-launcher case linked to a plot to kill S.B. Dissanayake.
උරුමයේ කරුමය
Ivan agrees with Anura Bandaranaike that the SLFP is a Bandaranaike family fiefdom in which Mahinda Rajapaksa is only a capable retainer, but warns that the country is not a fiefdom too. Further sections mock the ‘jobless’ President’s prison visit to her guards at Bogambara and her complaint that cabinet meetings drive her mad, note an unrevealed secret Mangala Samaraweera told S.B. Dissanayake, and describe how powerful remand prisoners end up in hospital rather than cells.
ජනාධිපති ලේකම්ට පිළිතුරක්
An open letter to Kusumsiri Balapatabendi answering his statement that private media were running a campaign linking the President and her security division to murders. Ivan lists attacks on Lasantha Wickrematunge and himself, the President’s own claim to have stopped a plot to kill two editors, S.B. Dissanayake’s account of her plan to bomb Ravaya and the Sunday Leader, and evidence linking presidential security men to the killings of Rohana Kumara and Kumar Ponnambalam and the assault on Rookantha and Chandraleka, and offers to join an impartial inquiry.
99 ජනාධිපතිවරණය වංචාවෙන් ජයගැනීම සඳහා යොදා ගැනුණු
Ivan argues that Chandrika Kumaratunga’s 1999 victory rested on organised fraud rather than sympathy after the bomb attack. He describes S.B. Dissanayake’s push for an early poll, a Samurdhi scheme to seize the poll cards of opposition voters, ballot-box substitution with compliant officials, the removal of the acting Elections Commissioner, and a million forged ballots distributed with underworld and presidential-security help. He ends with practical safeguards for party agents at the coming election.
රජ ගෙදරින් ඇසෙන ඝාතන සංවාදය
Chandrika Kumaratunga told a youth convention that S.B. Dissanayake had urged her to become a dictator and offered to have one or two critical editors killed. Dissanayake replied that she had discussed such matters with Baddegane Sanjeewa, the murdered presidential security officer linked to the Rohana Kumara killing. Ivan describes Sanjeewa’s wealth and protection, identifies the targeted editors as Lasantha Wickrematunge and himself, and recalls the threats and attacks they suffered.
The truth is out there
The accusations and counter-accusations in the quarrel between S.B. Dissanayake and the President are extremely serious, and both sides are holding fire — refraining from using all the bullets at once, and firing one or two at a time.
රාවයට වසර 15යි
Marking fifteen years, the piece traces Ravaya from a monthly magazine under J.R. Jayewardene to a broadsheet weekly. It says the paper helped bring Chandrika Kumaratunga to power but then opposed her government, which subjected it to bomb attacks and record criminal defamation cases. It pledges the same scrutiny of a coming UNP government and continued pursuit of Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and recalls how Jayewardene and Premadasa responded to its criticism.
මැතිවරණයෙන් විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan predicts a People’s Alliance defeat in the December 2001 election, citing curbs on rigging under the 17th Amendment, the defection of S.B. Dissanayake’s group, and the UNP’s alliance with the Muslim Congress and the Ceylon Workers’ Congress. Using vote shares from 1965 to 2000, he estimates the UNP-led front could near 50 per cent and about 125 seats, leaving the PA below 75, and warns of post-election back-door deals if the result is close.
කුණු වී සැරව ගලන තුවාලයක් බවට පත්ව ඇති දේශපාලනය
Ivan likens all parliamentary parties, the PA, UNP and JVP alike, to maggots feeding on a festering wound. He examines the charges traded after S.B. Dissanayake and others crossed to the opposition, including Mangala Samaraweera’s claims about Dissanayake’s Hanguranketa mansion, and the defectors’ own accounts of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s chronic lateness, her hoarding of ministries and her control of tenders through Ronnie Peiris, whose business links to the Katunayake expressway and Hiru radio he details.