The Third Reading of the Budget: What might happen?
After the government survived the second reading of the 2008 budget, Ivan weighs the UNP’s chances of defeating it at the third. He argues that even a defeat would not force a dissolution, that MPs want to finish their terms, and that party leaders should stop fighting over a rotten system and agree to change it.
How Will the War End?
The LTTE’s attack on the Anuradhapura air base showed it could still strike, and the air raid that killed Thamil Selvan showed the air force could too. Ivan argues neither side can win outright soon, and that the government should use its strong position to present proposals for a political solution rather than treat the conflict as terrorism alone.
Defeating Mr. President All But Impossible
Despite corruption, rights abuses, nepotism and rising prices, Ivan argues that President Rajapaksa is almost impossible to unseat before the presidential election of 2011. The UNP can defeat the budget only with the JVP, which gains too much from the government to risk it, and the rules of the system favour the President over the opposition.
The Travails of School and Free Education
The dispute over admissions to grade one sets the Supreme Court against the Education Ministry and Parliament. Ivan follows the fundamental rights petitions, the court’s own marking guidelines, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s privilege complaint and the part played by past pupils’ associations, and warns that the result will leave admissions in lasting disorder.
Mangala’s Unfinished Revolution
Mangala Samaraweera’s revolt against President Rajapaksa has hurt the regime, but Ivan finds it neither consistent nor honest. He compares it with the 1991 impeachment move by Athulathmudali and Dissanayake, and reminds readers of the share Samaraweera took under Kumaratunga and of the waste in the institutions he controlled.
A Cancerous Carnival
Starting from ministers’ housing and fuel allowances, Ivan tallies the cost of keeping politicians: vehicles, pensions, duty-free cars and an over-large cabinet. He traces how Colvin R. de Silva and J.R. Jayewardene concentrated power, and how presidents came to buy loyalty with public funds while black-money barons shape governments.
A Separate Tamil Nation:- Prabhakaran Has Got It Wrong.
Ivan argues that the separate-state goal adopted at the Vaddukoddai conference was imprudent and has brought the Tamil people mostly loss: India’s opposition, a homeland claim covering a third of the island, rival Tamil groups driven to the army as traitors, and a population now largely living outside the North and East. A movement that cannot turn back from a wrong path, he writes, cannot succeed.
Where the LTTE Went Wrong
Ivan argues that the LTTE, like the JVP in 1989, failed to trade armed struggle for politics when it held the advantage, and helped elect the government now bent on crushing it. He compares Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s role against the LTTE to the ruthless suppression of the second JVP uprising and concludes that armed struggle brings only blood and destruction.
Anton Balasingham: He left the Buddha and went to Marx
Written after Anton Balasingham’s death, the piece traces how the LTTE’s theorist moved from Buddhism to Marxism and gave the Tamil struggle the goal of a separate state. Ivan recalls a 1995 dinner in Jaffna with Balasingham, suggests he came to doubt the separatist idea late in life, and urges Tamil militants to reconsider it.