බලය ගල්ගැසුණු දෙයක් බවට පත් කළ ජේ.ආර්.ගේ ව්‍යවස්ථාව (ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්‍රශ්නය-4)
Part 4 examines the 1978 constitution. Holding five-sixths of Parliament after the 1977 election, J.R. Jayewardene rushed through a new constitution without proper public scrutiny, stripping Parliament of supremacy and creating a president above the law, with the power to appoint and dismiss the cabinet at will. Citing K.M. de Silva’s biography of Jayewardene, Ivan argues that though it removed some Sinhala-only provisions, the constitution was drafted without Tamil representatives and did nothing to stop young Tamils being pushed towards a separate state.
ව්‍යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්‍රශ්නය 3
The third part of Ivan’s series on constitution-making examines the Soulbury constitution, drafted around D.S. Senanayake’s wishes by Ivor Jennings, whose weak safeguards for minorities Lord Soulbury later regretted, and Colvin R. de Silva’s 1972 republican constitution, whose unitary state, primacy for Buddhism and Sinhala-only laws the Federal Party rejected. The Tamil representatives walked out, and the road led to the 1976 Vaddukoddai resolution for a separate state.
ගල් පර්වතය අයිස් පර්වතයක් බවට පත්වීම
Reading the March 2014 Western and Southern provincial council results, Ivan finds that the government’s vote, once rock-solid, has begun to melt, most of all in the populous Western Province. The UNP remains divided and the rise of General Fonseka’s party is notable. He warns that the government is playing with fire by defying the UN Human Rights Council, since Sri Lanka as a UN member cannot escape scrutiny of the violence used to crush its rebellions.
ජිනීවා යෝජනාවේ ප්‍රතිවිපාක ගැන
After the Human Rights Council’s March 2014 resolution on accountability and reconciliation, Ivan argues that in the modern world no war, internal or external, ends without an accounting. Stirring patriotic feeling is easy, but the public, used to the open economy since 1977, will not bear the cost of sanctions. If the government keeps acting headstrong, sanctions will follow, and the ruin of the country will be written against Mahinda Rajapaksa’s name.
වරද කාගේද අපේද? මහින්දගේද?
Ivan argues that once the country turned to violence, both rebels and the state came to rule through fear and to believe only their own convictions. The state crushed the Sinhala youth rebellion, then the Tamil one, and in the process the South killed Wijeweera and many of its own. The tragedy, he writes, is that after these victories the country learned nothing: there was no Emperor Asoka turning from war to righteousness, only a triumphalism that left the nation where it started. Blame lies with society as well as with Mahinda Rajapaksa.
අර්බුදය මට පෙනෙන හැටි (අවසන් කොටස)
Ivan divides the post-independence period into two eras and traces the second, from 1977: a government that could not be changed, thuggery institutionalised in the universities and unions, Black July and the JVP ban, and the violent era of 1985 to 2009, including Indian intervention and the state’s brutal suppression of the second JVP rising under Premadasa. Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance continued the corrupt system, and Mahinda Rajapaksa, after defeating Prabhakaran, chose a stinking path instead of reconciliation, leaving the country as isolated as it was when Prabhakaran was strong.
අර්බුදය මට පෙනෙන හැටි
Replying to a reader who said he blames everything on the executive presidency, Ivan traces the crisis further back, to a crisis of thought. Buddhism became confined to the Sinhalese, and independence came without a mass struggle, so the new state inherited narrow limits. He follows the distortions through to 1977 and beyond: the crushing of the 1980 general strike, the burning of the Jaffna library during the 1981 district council election, the 1982 referendum, and Black July, blamed on the JVP, which pushed both Tamil and Sinhala youth towards violence.
ජනාධිපති හිතුවක්කාරී නොවී නැවත සිතා බලන තැනකට නොගියහොත් ඇතිවිය හැක්කේ මහා විනාශයකි.
As the March 2014 Geneva resolution approaches, Ivan argues that a head of state is the country’s temporary trustee, not its owner, and that the President is gambling the nation’s fate. The media and religious leaders are failing to explain the danger, and the government’s claim of a Western conspiracy is empty. No country can survive in isolation; accountability for the end of the war should be dealt with at home, and the government must reconsider before sanctions follow.
එකක් කඩතොලු වසා ගන්නට ගොස් දෙකක් කඩතොලු හදා ගැනීම
Ahead of the March 2014 Human Rights Council session, where the High Commissioner was to report on Sri Lanka, Ivan warns that the government is making things worse by putting the President himself at the head of the Geneva fight. He compares the two JVP risings and the LTTE war, three youth rebellions crushed by force, and argues that after defeating the LTTE Mahinda Rajapaksa had a rare chance to heal the nation and win international respect, but instead undermined the rule of law and turned manageable problems into international crises.
චෝගම් ආශ්‍රයෙන් උගත හැකි පාඩම්
CHOGM exposed the depth of Sri Lanka’s crisis, Ivan argues: foreign lawyers were refused visas for a Bar Association event, when Param Cumaraswamy had once come freely to criticise the judiciary. The government cannot investigate war-time abuses because it fears the armed forces it now leans on, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa would not welcome it. Every insurrection and its suppression was brutal; Ivan judges the army’s conduct against the LTTE less savage than in 1989 and rejects the 40,000 figure, yet accepts crimes such as the Trincomalee killings. Sirimavo Bandaranaike prosecuted Premawathie Manamperi’s killers; Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown no such courage.