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.
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.
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.
ලැජ්ජා නැතිකමේ දේශපාලනය
Even after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election, Chandrika Kumaratunga will not give up the party leadership, and Ranil Wickremesinghe clings to his despite telling friends he would quit. Ivan recounts what a CID officer told him in confidence during the terror that followed the 1999 election, and ends by wishing that she not be jailed and made to suffer for what was done in her eleven years of rule.
සිය කැමැත්තෙන් විනාශයට යන රටක්
Lacking the wisdom to untie simple knots, Sri Lanka has let them grow into tangles, and the people pay the price. The editorial notes that the investigation into Judge Ambepitiya’s murder identified an underworld figure as the mastermind, and urges voters to make the candidates present, without lies, their vision for the country’s problems.
අධිකරණ තීන්දුවෙන් පසු: ඊළගට විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
The Chief Justice’s only way out of a great crisis over the election year was to rule for 2005, ending the President’s dream of staying until 2006, though she still has cards to play. Ivan warns that the country is caught in a cycle of political violence and that the killings must be controlled even as attention turns to the election.
පොලිස් මිනීමැරුම් ද?
In recent weeks many underworld figures have been shot by police ‘while trying to escape’ or ‘attacking officers’. The piece notes the distress of the politicians who hired such men, explains why suspects first run to their patrons, and argues that killing them in custody destroys both the rule of law and the chance to expose those behind them.
ජනතා හිතවාදය යට ඇති කූට සැලසුම්
Jobs for graduates, a thousand tanks restored, a relief budget and ten thousand villages uplifted form the populist first round of the government’s show. The editorial warns that the second round will be coercive and violent, aimed at removing from politics those able to lead resistance, though the government itself is not united behind it.
පොලති හා යහපත් ආණ්ඩුකරණය
The editorial welcomes the retirement of Inspector General of Police Anandarajah after he was denied an extension, following protests over his attendance at a drug dealer’s daughter’s birthday party. It doubts this signals any real commitment by the President to good governance, citing her protection of the Chief Justice and of presidential security officers, and criticises the government and Interior Minister John Amaratunga for defending the IGP and staying silent on the Public Trustee and the Telecom chairman.