ග්රීස් යකුන් පිළිබඳ ඇත්ත කුමක්ද?
The grease devil story pushed people in some areas into acting on impulse. It was said at first to be the work of mental patients — which cannot be, since the work of mental patients does not happen in various parts of the country in the same period. Rumour may have played its part, and there is evidently something in the stories, because in several areas people caught men who were then arrested.
ඊළඟට කුමක්ද?
The government went to provincial elections meaning to follow them with a parliamentary poll, and had escaped the trap set by the courts over fuel prices; with Kilinochchi taken, everything was falling its way. The Sirasa attack and Lasantha Wickrematunge’s killing two days later have thrown that picture into confusion. Any fair-minded person sees both as the government’s work, and the government’s reply — that it would be mad to do such a thing when conditions favoured it — has an argument in it but no evidence for the conspiracy it alleges instead. Ivan finds no motive on the part of the forces or their commanders, and no evidence tying them to these two attacks, though he accepts a unit attached to them assaulted Keith Noyahr and Namal Perera. Responsibility rests finally with the President as commander-in-chief. Sri Lanka investigates nothing seriously: even the site of Premadasa’s assassination was washed down at once.
භයානක ප්රවණතාවක
Amid the army’s advances in the north, Ivan writes, what is heard in the south is terrifying. A Claymore mine was used against Sirasa’s operations room on the 6th, detonated remotely — and only the security forces and the LTTE possess Claymores or know how to handle them. Two days later four men on two motorcycles stopped Lasantha Wickrematunge’s car and shot him in the head. Journalists commonly believe both attacks, and two earlier assaults, were the work of the security forces, though they do not say so publicly. Ivan grants the forces their role and their sacrifice, and asks journalists to be sensitive in wartime — but argues that using power against critics earns no public respect, and that the government’s decision to look away after Keith Noyahr and Namal Perera were attacked is now costing it dearly.
ජනමාධ්ය බිය ගැන්වීම
Threats to journalists used to come from the government; now they come from the government and from gangs. Ivan follows the Rupavahini affair from the attack on a programme producer to the armed group that told another employee’s mother he would be killed, and sets it beside the JVP’s habit of calling violence against ordinary people a campaign against a foreign army.
තත්ත්වය ඛේදජනකයි
The year opened with the killing of a member of parliament — the third since the government took office, and all three Tamil. Ivan sets out what is alleged about the reduction of the murdered member’s guard after he voted against the budget, and asks how a country’s human rights position can improve when members must leave it to stay alive.
රට කොයිබට ද?
The private bus strike of the 9th against new traffic fines brought transport to a halt. The editorial finds public transport in the same chaos as everything else and proposes proper licensing and training for bus crews, paid for by the state while they train.
නීතියේ පාලනයක් නැති අරාජික රටක්
The train and bus collision at Yangalmodara was no accident of chance: the roads were run in a way that invited it. The editorial finds the same lawlessness everywhere, from a head of state and an opposition leader who do not respect the law to MPs selling duty-free cars, and says the rule of law will come only when it is applied to the sharks, not the sprats.
සිවිල් සමාජ ව්යාපාරයක් ඇති කරගැනීමට සුදුසු කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
The failure to manage the tsunami’s damage is creating the conditions for a ‘political tsunami’, a near-anarchy in which citizens no longer obey the state or the parties. Ivan argues that the moment has come for a civil society movement built by joining the many people’s organisations already working for the public good.
රට යන්නේ අරාජිකත්වයට ද?
JVP and SLFP local leaders in Galle are fighting over who will build the town’s bus stand: the JVP says the SLFP chief minister’s Rs 4.1 million plan could be done for Rs 500,000. Despite lamps lit together for unity, the editorial finds no unity even within the government, and every institution sliding into greater confusion while Parliament loses control of public money.
Voluntary March Towards Destruction
Victor Ivan argues that neither the UPFA nor the UNP read the 2004 election result correctly: the government took a near-tie as a mandate, the opposition as a victory, when both should have read it as a demand for consensus. Parliament has sat three times since the election, spending those days on abuse and fisticuffs while costing Rs 1.9 million a day whether it meets or not. The government advertises the repeal of the Tax Amnesty Act and the compensation formula though no amending bills have been tabled, and diverts youth brigade funds without the parliamentary approval such a transfer requires. Having roused the trade unions against its predecessor, it now cannot drive back the demon it summoned; having roused the country against the Norwegian-brokered talks, it now wants negotiations in an environment of its own poisoning. Ivan holds not only politicians but intellectuals, the private sector and society at large responsible for standing aside, and expects wisdom to arrive only after the fall.