ප්රතිසන්ධානය හා ගෝඨාභය සාධකය
Ivan rejects Uvindu Kurukulasuriya’s website report that at a dinner with Minister DEW Gunasekera he had plotted to save the government and blamed Gotabaya Rajapaksa for every problem; the report, he says, rested on a third-hand source. The talks were among many long one-to-one discussions he held with politicians of all sides to test support for a national programme to rebuild the state and nation, which he believes many would accept. Leaders need not be ideal — South Africa’s transition, Cromwell and Lenin show that — so the chance must not be missed. He credits Gotabaya Rajapaksa with the war’s strategy, with bringing Sarath Fonseka forward, and with resettlement and rehabilitation, but says abductions, including of Frontline Socialist Party activists, and extra-legal drives against drug dealers are squandering that honour; he must adapt to peace or lose everything.
අනුන් ගැන මිස තමන් ගැන විවේචනයක් නැති ජනමාධ්ය හා ජනමාධ්ය බෝම්බ
Uvindu answered Ivan’s article without answering the basic question it raised about reporting, and Ivan writes again because the subject matters to journalists and to readers interested in understanding Sri Lankan political reality. Six sections follow, ending on the power the press holds and on what he calls media atom bombs.
අධිකරණය ජනමාධ්ය හා සමාජ-දේශපාලන යථාර්ථය
Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, once a freelance writer for Ravaya, questioned Ivan’s present silence on the burning questions of the judiciary in an article for the Sunday Leader on the 17th. He opened with something that interests the public: that the president, minister Basil Rajapaksa and the prime minister attended a reception at the home of Saliya Hettige on his appointment to the Supreme Court.
ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක් සමග ඉදිරිය දැකීමක්
Ivan sets out his own positions and why they left him isolated. He held that the Tamil rebellion was inseparable from Tamil grievances and had to be settled by negotiation — until it became clear the LTTE would accept nothing short of a separate state or confederation, at which point he supported defeating it militarily. He backed the war publicly and predicted the LTTE’s defeat while most of Ravaya’s own writers argued it could not be won. On the killing and beating of journalists he told colleagues the blame could not be laid wholly on a government unable to move against its army commander mid-war, and was angrily rejected by Sunanda Deshapriya. He records that this was the third insurrection he supported suppressing, including the 1971 rising he took part in himself. At the presidential election his loyalty was to Rajapaksa, whose remaining task he defines as remaking the state and political system.
ජනමාධ්යවේදීහු සදාචාර අර්බුදයක
Journalists demand information from everyone and are scrutinised by no one, Ivan argues — and when their own affairs come into question, they close ranks. He notes that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s criticism of media conduct went undiscussed, that neither the Centre for Policy Alternatives nor Sunanda Deshapriya explained their dispute publicly, and that people inside the Free Media Movement asked him to help keep its internal investigation out of the press. He then publishes figures: two officers paid 750 euros a month by INSI for journalist safety, whose existence most journalists do not know of; a protection fund paying 5,000 rupees a month to five families of murdered journalists while paying rents of 230,000 and 178,000 to two threatened ones; trainers paid up to 38,400 rupees for a two-day workshop, who also act as coordinators and judge the essay competitions. Four journalists’ November payments are itemised, with monthly incomes reaching 326,530 rupees.
අර්බුදය ගැන ආපසු හැරි බැලිමක්
Answering a reader who asks why Ravaya keeps writing about Sarath N. Silva, Ivan retells how his suspicions began with the Lenin Ratnayake affair: the rape allegation reported in 1997, police findings that Ratnayake had been dismissed from the Insurance Corporation for fraud, and a confidential 1998 report in which Silva as Attorney General shielded him. He describes the Bar’s past presidents’ resolution, the inquiries that found Ratnayake and Upali Abeyratne guilty, his own disbarment petition, and Silva’s appointment as Chief Justice, and calls for his removal.