ක්රමයේ අර්බුදය උග්ර කරන පළාත් සභා මැතිවරණ
Hearing Sajith Premadasa promise better welfare for the rural poor under a UNP president, Ivan reflects that no change of president can rescue a system that has outlived its time. Prabhakaran’s defeat left the traditional political system without its enemy and exposed its decay: an economic crisis alongside lavish infrastructure spending, chaos in the energy sector, and mass recruitment of young people into state jobs to buy support. Holding provincial council elections piecemeal before their terms end, he argues, shows how deep the government’s crisis is.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka stands on the brink of the collapse of its political system, as N.M. Perera predicted of J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 constitution. He cautions the new opposition Movement Against Lawlessness against idealising the 17th Amendment, since the constitution lets the president stand above the law as a constitutional dictator. The removal of limits on election spending has put black money in control of sectors from the stock market to energy, and even a change of government would not rescue the system. He draws a symbolic parallel between Prabhakaran’s rise by eliminating other Tamil leaders and what may be unfolding in the Sinhala South.
දේශපාලන ප්රතිසංස්කරණ මගහැරයෑමේ හැකියාවක් නැත
Had the country reorganised itself after the war, Ivan argues, it would have satisfied its people and reduced foreign pressure. Three insurrections have cost over 100,000 lives and many of the best leaders — a foreign scholar told a friend that no comparable country had lost so many — yet the causes were never addressed and the Youth Commission’s findings, including on caste, were ignored. Every institution has decayed: Parliament, a discredited judiciary with a 4% conviction rate, schools reliant on tuition, hospitals short of drugs, chaotic buses, a tangled public pay system. Taxes on flour and fuel fall on ordinary people without matching services; corruption is built into a system of black-money elections; and the President stands above the law, which is why the 13th and 17th Amendments were never binding. Only a fundamental reorganisation, including a fair settlement with the Tamils, can prevent permanent division.
ෆොන්සේකා නිදහස්! ඊළඟට කුමක්ද?
The President’s decision to release General Sarath Fonseka, whatever its motives, signals willingness to move towards a softer government and reform, Ivan writes. The prosecution looked to fair-minded people like the victor’s revenge, displeasing even those who voted against Fonseka. He traces the rift between Fonseka, the President and the Defence Secretary after the war, and argues that its breaking of the ruling triumvirate was good for the country, since a united trio might have produced a harsher, more militarised government, and a Fonseka victory in 2010 might even have led to dictatorship. Fonseka’s leap into politics at the head of anti-war forces was his greatest folly; abandoned by his allies except Karu Jayasuriya, he accepted a conditional release, yet history will remember him as one of the world’s great commanders.
හොඳම විසඳුම 13ද?-
India, the West, Tamil leaders and devolution advocates treat full implementation of the 13th Amendment as the best solution, but Ivan argues it was built for the North-East Tamils alone, on the unproven idea of a traditional Tamil homeland, and imposed on a reluctant J.R. Jayewardene under Indian pressure. Citing G.H. Peiris’s study of the Eastern Province and K.M. de Silva’s critique of separatist ideology, he says the homeland claim has never been rebutted, and warns that a solution resting on it will leave others feeling deceived. Sinhala and Tamil leaders should each apologise for their wrongs. He proposes village councils modelled on India’s panchayats, district councils able to merge into provincial and regional councils by popular consent, a smaller Parliament with a Senate, a human-rights charter, information rights, and strong election and anti-corruption commissions.
ජිනීවා අර්බුදය-
Sri Lanka was right to oppose the US resolution at the Human Rights Council, Ivan writes, but its campaign damaged the country’s name — ending with Minister Mervyn Silva’s boast that he had Poddala Jayantha beaten and would punish others who went to Geneva. He warns against the view that the balance of power is shifting to China, arguing that India, soon larger and younger and closer to Western values, matters more to a country that lives ‘in India’s mouth’. National sovereignty is relative: as a UN member bound by the ICCPR, Sri Lanka cannot treat the Council’s action as unlawful. The war was fought within a civilised framework, but the Foreign Ministry lost the propaganda war, letting support fall from 32 votes in 2009 to 15 in 2012. The best course is to go beyond the resolution with a national programme to rebuild the state.
ඥානාන්විත වියයුතු තරමට ඥානාන්විත නොවීම
The government’s counter-campaign against the US resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, Ivan argues, damaged Sri Lanka’s image. It had a clear strategy to win the war but none for what followed: an angry Tamil diaspora that saw the defeat as genocide, a rift with the US after Colombo first agreed and then refused a plan to evacuate Prabhakaran and other leaders, and a drift towards China, Iran and Russia. Just as Western pressure eased to a call to implement the LLRC’s recommendations, the government failed to adapt. He names four failures: no nation-building reorganisation after the war, neglect of relations with the Western markets, broken promises to India over 13-plus, and slowness in restoring normality, ending abductions and withdrawing the forces from civilian life.
25 වැනි සමරුව හා ව්යාකූලතා
Ivan reflects on objections, among a few readers and staff, to inviting the President and other leaders to Ravaya’s 25th anniversary. Ravaya’s readers have never held one view, he says: during 1988–89 it refused to use the insurrection to topple the UNP; it helped defeat that government in 1994 but refused to profit from the new one, learning that changing governments does not change the system. The deepest split came over the war against the LTTE, which Ravaya opposed in a way Ivan now calls sometimes unfair and extreme, while he himself saw a just and winnable war; he argues that the UNP obstructed it hoping for regime change, that Prabhakaran and Wijeweera both chose guns over politics, and that the 2010 election left a hatred between the two camps that now blocks reform.
රට තිබෙන්නේ අර්බුදයක මුවවිටය
Ivan credits the government with six years of growth, infrastructure and controlled inflation, but says it was bought with borrowing and an expensive defence of the rupee. Floating the rupee and sharply raising fuel prices marks a forced change of course, yet the government is patching one or two parts of a worn-out engine. The Petroleum Corporation’s losses from political price-fixing, subsidies and corruption, and grossly one-sided thermal-power contracts at the Electricity Board, are symptoms of a wider decay. A falling rupee and rising prices could bring inflation, closures and political unrest. The opposition should not treat the crisis as a chance to topple the government; only a national reorganisation of the political and administrative system, with all parties, can save the country.
දහතුනේ අවුල
To win India’s support against the LTTE, President Rajapaksa promised a ’13-plus’ political solution, and Tamil leaders, the UNP and the old Left now demand he keep it, while the JHU, JVP and NFF oppose it. Ivan argues that the President’s doubts are not unreasonable, because the ethnic question is one expression of a larger failure of the political system. He traces how Tamil demands grew from modest regional councils in the Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam and Senanayake–Chelvanayakam pacts to the 1976 separate-state resolution, the 1977 mandate, Black July, the Thimpu principles and the Indo-Lanka Accord, and says the provincial council system was hastily designed under LTTE pressure. He proposes instead village councils like India’s panchayats, district councils (with a provincial council for the North if needed), a smaller Parliament and a Senate.