හැරී ගුණතිලක
An obituary for Air Marshal Harry Gunetilleke, who died at seventy-nine. Ivan writes about how honest a man holding office can be, tells the story of the ban a president placed on him and how he had it lifted, and records that having a son as air force commander did not quiet him: he went on saying what he thought in public until he died.
මංගලගේ ආරක්ෂාව හා දේශපාලන භූමිකාව
Mangala Samaraweera says he is an LTTE target, that his guard is inadequate and that the government will answer for anything that happens to him. Ivan agrees he should be properly protected and then declines to join the procession: he recalls what was done to Ravaya through the labour department when Samaraweera held office, and says a man who wants to start again should begin with self-criticism.
යක්ෂයාට ගිය ජවිපෙ සදාචාරය
Starting from a gift of Li Zhisui’s memoir of Mao, Ivan turns to the morality the JVP claims for itself: the party that says it is the cleanest in the country, and the accounts of extortion from businesses, the sale of party services, and the misuse of money that its own internal quarrel has now brought into the open.
හොංකොංවල සිදුවූ නිහඬ විප්ලවය
The second part of the Hong Kong argument, and the practical half: Godber’s flight, the independent commission set up in answer to it, the cleaning of the police, the construction industry and the attorney general’s department. A deputy director of prosecutions fled the country and the senior lawyer who helped him got four years. Today complaints against public servants are almost unheard of.
හොංකොංවලින් උගත හැකි පාඩම් (1)
Hong Kong before 1974 was as rotten as Sri Lanka — a bribe was a condition of getting anything done, including calling the fire brigade. Today its police force is among the cleanest in the world. In the first of two parts Ivan sets out how corruption is structured here instead: what political power is worth, why business invests in politicians rather than in business, and what the country pays for it.
මහින්ද රනිල් පොරය
In this political system the ruler and the leader of the opposition can survive only by destabilising each other, Ivan writes, and the system has decayed far enough that each attempt weakens both. He reads Ranil Wickremesinghe waiting to be chosen as the next saviour and Mahinda Rajapaksa waiting on the war, and says both are prisoners of the same corrupt arrangement.
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.
චන්ද්රිකාගේ ජනාධිපති සමය
A critical assessment of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency: her half-hearted support for Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Cabinet decision to give her land beside Parliament, property dealings in Britain and France, her failure ever to declare her assets, her habits in office, her handling of the peace process and the ‘war for peace’, tenders and procurement favouring friends, and the argument that a president can have no immunity for crimes against humanity.
රෝමය ගිනි ගනිද්දි නීරෝ වීණා වාදනය කළා සේ, රටට ඉතිරි වී ඇත්තේ ද වීණා වාදනය පමණය
Like it or not, the Sri Lankan state is close to complete collapse, and what can be done depends on understanding why. Ivan works through examples of institutional failure, adding the Chief Justice, the Public Trustee and the Commissioner of Registration of Persons to cases already discussed, to show that every arm of the state is breaking down.