Performance that does not match words
The LTTE has rejected the existing social contract and is fighting for a new one and a new state. Since the end of that could be the break-up of the country, the government tried to crush the rebellion by war, and having found that hard has had to offer to amend the contract instead.
Ensuring healthy peace talks
After the failure of Agni Khiela the government has had to soften the hard conditions it set for starting talks. It now enters negotiations from weakness rather than strength, and the talks are likelier to deepen its crisis than to steady it.
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.
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.
නපුර ජයගැනීම
Sri Lanka signed the UN Convention against Torture and passed a torture law in 1994, yet political torture has grown. Ivan cites the case of beautician Ivan Turner, detained as an alleged LTTE suspect and humiliated by senior police officer Bandula Wickremasinghe, whose only punishment was a transfer. Borrowing Bishop Frank Marcus’s phrase ‘evil rule’, he argues that Kumaratunga, like Jayewardene and Premadasa, rules through partisanship, and that only democratic reform can end it or allow the ethnic question to be seen democratically.
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.
රාජසන කතාව හා ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
The editorial says the President’s throne speech covered much but ignored the real problems of democracy. It cites the Elections Commissioner, PAFFREL’s finding of gross malpractice in 22 electorates, the election-violence monitors’ call to annul 17 results and EU observers’ ratings of polling stations, against her claim to have revived democracy since 1994. Consensus against Prabhakaran’s terrorism, it argues, requires first ending the state terror and electoral fraud of every ruling party since 1977, and the opposition must take up a practical reform programme.
රට යමින් තිබෙන්නේ ම්ලේච්ඡත්වයටද
Ivan says the killing of Tamil detainees at a rehabilitation camp near Bandarawela presents a savage image to the country and the world, since the state is responsible for those in its custody. Recalling the two Welikada prison massacres of 1983, he notes that in a Western country the whole government would resign, warns that answering Prabhakaran’s brutality with equal brutality invites a new cycle of violence, and calls for an impartial inquiry and prosecution of those responsible.
මතුවී තිබෙන අර්බුදයට විසඳුම ඇත්තේ කොතැනද?
Ivan likens the President’s effort to assemble a government to collecting frogs in a basket. Rejecting Rauff Hakeem’s demand for four independent commissions within 100 days, she turned to Ferial Ashraff, whose unconditional support is splitting the Muslim Congress and the National Unity Alliance. He proposes an all-party interim government with a democratic agenda: an independent judiciary, abolition or curbing of the executive presidency, a code of conduct for elected members, independent commissions, a right to information, media reform and agreed principles for ethnic coexistence.
Reforms process: it’s a matter of trust
If Tamil and Muslim people saw the President’s attempt at a new constitution as a genuine effort to settle the ethnic question, its failure must pain them. And if she had succeeded, it might have brought not a solution but bloodshed between communities — because the thing missing was never the document.