යුද්ධයෙන් ජයගෙන ප්රචාරණ යුද්ධයෙන් පරාජය වීම
The government won its war against Prabhakaran in an astonishing way. What it failed to do was to understand in advance that after that victory it would have to fight a more complicated propaganda war against the diaspora friendly to him, and that failing in that war could cost it everything the fighting had won.
කෙළවර කුමක්ද?
Sri Lanka appears to be tangling its problems further instead of settling them. It was the support of neighbouring India that let the war against Prabhakaran be carried to victory over the obstruction of the Western powers, and in return Sri Lanka appears to have given India various promises — chief among them the assurance that the 13th amendment would be implemented after the war.
13 වන සංශෝධනය හා ඉන්දියාව
A great tangle is being made again over the 13th amendment. After the war ended the president assured India and the world that the amendment plus one thing more would be implemented — and that assurance, given publicly and loudly enough for the whole country to hear, was what India used to control the pressure raised against the war within India itself.
චැනල් හතර
The documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, shown on Channel 4 on the 14th, has shaken not only foreigners who watched it but the Sri Lankan diaspora of both communities. Letting this question fester is very bad: it does enormous damage to Sri Lanka’s standing and puts Sri Lankans living in Western countries in a difficult position.
බුද්ධිමය අවංකභාවය හා බුද්ධිමතකුගේ සදාචාර අර්බුදය (ආචාර්ය සුනිල් විජේසිරිවර්ධනට පිළිතුරක්)
Ivan questioned one idea from Dr Sunil Wijesiriwardena’s interview, not to put him in difficulty but because he believed it would put a wrong view into a reader’s head. The reply came, and this is Ivan’s answer to the reply — which begins by noting that the reply insists repeatedly that it is not a reply.
ඉන්දියාව හා 13 වැනි සංශෝධනය
The question of what political settlement should be given to the Tamil people of the north has again reached a state of feeling rather than of thought, and the joint statement issued by the Indian and Sri Lankan external affairs ministers has drawn heavy criticism in some quarters — with some parties using it to raise anti-Indian feeling again.
ශ්රද්ධාව ඵලදායී කරගැනීම
Two young men from the village came to the house for a contribution to an alms-giving before Vesak. What usually happens is that something is put on the subscription list; this time, because Ivan knew one of them well, he fell into a plain conversation with them about what the alms-giving would cost and what it was meant to achieve.
දෙමළ ප්රශ්නය හා සුනිල් විජේසිරිවර්ධන
An interview with Dr Sunil Wijesiriwardena on the Tamil question appeared in the last Ravaya, and the purpose of this article is to question one idea in it — the idea that governs everything else he says there. The claim that no attempt was made to give a fair political settlement and that war was all that was done is, Ivan writes, entirely wrong.
අන්තර්ජාතික අවුල ලිහාගැනීම
The government had a programme with a strong vision for defeating Prabhakaran’s separatist terrorism at home. It had no such vision for the international questions that would follow the victory: it failed to see them coming, and even once they had become serious it did not manage to build a programme with a strong forward vision for meeting them.
බින් ලාඩන් හා ප්රභාකරන් පරාජය කිරීම
America has at last managed to end the life of Bin Laden, the terrorist who held the whole of America in dread. Ivan sets that beside the two Sri Lankan cases — Wijeweera’s second insurrection and the defeat of Prabhakaran — and asks what a war against terrorism is, and where the difference lies.