ත්රස්තවාදය ගැන ජනාධිපතිනිය
President Kumaratunga’s view of terrorism, given to the UN General Assembly after George W. Bush spoke, is judged sound, and more careful than Ranil Wickremesinghe’s earlier speech there. But the editorial reminds her that her government can do nothing without the JVP and cannot move a step without a settlement of the ethnic conflict.
සන්ධාන ආණ්ඩුව දුෂ්කර කඩුල්ලක් ජයගනී
With Arumugam Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress and its eight MPs on board, the alliance government has overcome its lack of a parliamentary majority. The editorial says the President’s hardest task now is to satisfy both Velupillai Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
තිබ්බොටුවාවේ ශ්රී සුමංගල නාහිමියන්ගේ නිර්භීත ප්රවේශය
In a country without leaders who love it, understand its problems or want to lift it up, the Mahanayake of Malwatte has spoken fearlessly: ready for talks with the LTTE, urging both the LTTE and the JVP to avoid extremes, and taking a moderate line on conversions. The editorial sees in him a rare hope, while warning that his road will not be easy.
Alliance Government Crosses A Difficult Hurdle
Thondaman’s CWC has brought eight MPs to the Alliance, and with three from the SLMC and one JHU monk the government reaches 118 — enough to govern, but thirty-two short of what the President actually wants. Victor Ivan credits her nerve: she dissolved a parliament the UNP controlled, broke her promise to the Speaker, allied with the JVP at the risk of her own party, and won a gamble that had her survival at stake, while the leader of the opposition remained in a world of his dreams. Her remaining aim is to avoid invalidation at the end of her second term, and Ivan judges that despite her stated preference for abolishing the executive presidency she will instead seek to amend it to permit three terms — a course she can justify to the minorities, to her own party and to the JVP in turn. The arithmetic runs through Prabhakaran: satisfying him on the ISGA delivers the TNA’s twenty-two MPs and brings a two-thirds majority within ten UNP defections. The difficulty is pleasing Prabhakaran and Wimal Weerawansa at once.
Government in a Stalemate
Victor Ivan traces the trap the UPFA government has built for itself. Resuming peace talks would solve both its problems at once — the TNA would support it at least from outside, curing the parliamentary shortfall, and the international aid package would ease the economic squeeze. But the JVP promised the country it would block the interim proposals and shut out Norway, and Ivan concedes their refusal is consistent even if wrong. The SLFP, having called the peace programme a treacherous plan to hand the LTTE a separate state, cannot now embrace it either; nor can the President drop the JVP for the UNP, which holds more seats than her own party and could bring down any government it supported from outside. Even the constitutional change for which she dissolved parliament has lost its constituency. Unable to move, the government buys public opinion with concessions the economy cannot fund, driving inflation and interest rates up on Treasury Bill issues and the rupee down. Ivan closes on Norway’s Vidar Helgesen, who likened the war to a frozen iceberg now melting as the talks collapse.
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.
What Can Happen?
Reading the April 2004 election result, Victor Ivan opens with a fable of three fish: the green fish stripped of its dominance by a blue-and-red alliance, and the victors fused into one distorted creature, the red fish triumphant but immobilised by the half of the blue fish it cannot finish swallowing. Beneath the allegory he argues that a real change has begun — the system in which either main party’s turn in office amounted to an official permit to plunder public property may not survive the JVP’s new strength. But he judges the JVP’s positions on the economy and the ethnic question neither progressive nor practical: it accepts decentralisation while rejecting devolution, when only maximum devolution can settle the war, and its coercive route to constitutional change invites Prabhakaran to conclude that a minority may also impose its way. With the SLFP reduced to a dwarf and both leaders’ ambitions evaporating, Ivan proposes an all-party interim administration on an agreed reform programme.
What is going to happen?
Writing days before the April 2004 parliamentary election, Victor Ivan argues that no result can reduce the country’s instability. Two nationalist blocs have each split — the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s monks drawing away from the JVP’s claim to represent Sinhala nationalism, and Karuna’s break dividing the Tamil National Alliance between north and east. If no party reaches 105 seats, the balancing seats cannot come from the TNA, since courting Prabhakaran means fighting Karuna and courting Karuna means fighting Prabhakaran. Ivan sets out the manoeuvres open to Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe in each scenario, warns that a prolonged failure to form a government would weaken the economy and the rule of law and choke off international aid, and notes that Prabhakaran — who had watched the earlier crisis with amusement — is now as bogged down as the two leaders he was observing.
සෝම හිමියන්ගේ අපවත්වීම, ආගම් භේද හා ශ්රී ලංකාවේ ජාතිකත්ව ගැටලුව – 2
Ivan traces how the Sinhala people formed from many tribal groups, with Buddhism as the force that united them under one language and faith, how Tamil-speaking groups from South India settled alongside them, and how Muslim trading settlements grew from about the eighth century under tolerant Sinhala kings who also endowed Hindu temples.
රට යන්නේ විනාශයටය
The President wants to avoid political irrelevance at any price; the Prime Minister wants to keep the executive presidency so that he can inherit it. The editorial warns that this power struggle could end in anarchy and in the LTTE gaining freedom to act without a negotiated settlement.