අපට කළහැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lankan society has become spiritually rotten after thirty years of violence within and between communities, which left widows, orphans and a population traumatised by fear, and armed criminals serving both rebels and the state. The war was won but the great transformation that should have followed was not attempted, and the corrupt political system is now close to collapse. Using the parable of a crumbling house, he proposes that a small group with a sense of justice should leave it and build a model community free of caste, race and religious divisions, and he invites debate on the idea.
දේශපාලන ක්රමයේ ගමනක අවසානයද?
Ivan argues that the political system is collapsing so fast that an explosion may be near. He cites some 600,000 people wanted on warrants, about 11 in every 100 adults, a conviction rate of around 4% against 70% in India, and extortion from private buses running to hundreds of millions of rupees a month. He traces the growth of a lumpen class of contract killers, extortionists and drug dealers to the post-1977 system, to politicians’ private militias and to the auction of liquor licences being replaced by patronage, and gives examples of land frauds, including a woman who came to him for help in Chandrika Kumaratunga’s time.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ පරිහානිය හා එය ජයගැනීම
Ivan’s submission to the parliamentary select committee on the conduct and discipline of MPs. He cites a survey in which only 12% of people trusted Parliament, and traces the decline through land grabs and permits, thugs and private militias, and black money in elections, contrasting today’s spending with the limits of 1965 and 1970. He recalls the L.M.D. de Silva and Thalgodapitiya commissions, which led to MPs being expelled, and argues that the assets and liabilities law should be enforced, with declarations published on a parliament website. He also proposes a German-style mixed electoral system instead of the plan of the Dinesh Gunawardena committee.
ප්රතිසංස්කරණය හා ප්රතිනිර්මාණය
Answering lawyer Sudarshana Gunawardana of Rights Now and the Platform for Freedom, who wrote in Samabima that Ivan merely preaches to the ruler, Ivan says he never believed sermons to leaders could change the system. Rejecting violent revolution, he sees two peaceful routes — persuading lawmakers, the quicker one, or building an alternative within the old system, as set out in his book on saving Sri Lanka — and argues reform must come now, not after the next change of government, because terrorism is gone, the system is exposed and exhausted, and black money is taking over. He calls for a broad national reform agenda drafted as carefully as India’s constitution, dismisses the Platform as a foreign-funded project with a narrow base and no theory, and describes his own books on the political system, caste and religion as the result of long study.
දේශපාලන පාදඩකරණය හා කළු සල්ලි
Sri Lanka, Ivan warns, is falling into the grip of criminals and black-money barons: only 4% of criminal cases end in conviction, against 70% in India and 85% in Europe, because witnesses are unprotected, police corrupt and courts compromised. He traces how the JVP and LTTE insurrections led politicians to arm private security gangs drawn from local criminals, how rival underworld gangs rose and fell with changes of government — killings that foretold each change — and how criminals became MPs and councillors without abandoning extortion and drug dealing. Election costs have exploded, from one lakh in 1989 to 500 lakhs for a district seat, so parties and presidents depend on black money repaid from public funds. He calls for spending limits, audited accounts and caps on donations.
දේශපාලන ක්රමය නිරුවත් කිරීම
Ivan argues that the collapse of the J.R. Jayewardene system, which N.M. Perera called a ‘hotchpotch’ of presidential systems, has only accelerated even under a popular President. Chandrika Kumaratunga seized control of public finance from Parliament and used Sarath N. Silva to break the independence of the judiciary; corruption and politicians’ reliance on local criminals for security did the rest. While Wijeweera and Prabhakaran threatened the country, the public could not see the rot; Prabhakaran’s defeat has stripped the system naked. Ivan lists fifteen recent ‘scenes’, from the Golden Key and Sakvithi collapses to the Tangalle murder of a British tourist, and calls on the President to lead a national reorganisation with all parties.
2005-2010 දක්වා ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්
The years 2005 to 2010 were a period crowded with events: a great war between the government and the LTTE, and alongside it a great conflict between the government and the opposition movements. Ivan had wanted for some time to write a review of the conflict between those two sides in those five years, and of his own part in it.
අනුරුද්ධ රත්වත්ත
Anuruddha has died, and as a man who was close to him for a time Ivan thinks it important to set down a note about him. What follows is a personal account, including the plain observation that neither Anuruddha nor Chandrika appears to have had full confidence in the other when she was brought into the SLFP.
රාජපක්ෂ පාලනයේ හත් අවුරුද්ද
Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went wrong.
දුමින්ද සිල්වා හා අධිකරණය
The judiciary can be counted an important factor in the tangles of this country. As Harold Laski said, the courts are the mirror that reflects the degree of political civilisation in any national society — and we did once have a judiciary of that kind.