යළි මරණ බිය රජ කරන යුගයක්
Ivan rejects the government’s explanation of the attacks on Rookantha Gunathilake, Chandralekha Perera and Anoja Weerasinghe as robbery or private feud, comparing the haircutting to the abduction of Lakbima’s Sri Lal Priyantha and recalling unsolved attacks on photographers, Sarath Kongahage and Lasantha Wickrematunge and the murders of Rohana Kumara and Kumar Ponnambalam. He quotes Chandrika Kumaratunga’s 1994 advertisement pledging to end state terror and says she now travels the opposite road.
52 වැනි නිදහස හා මරණ බිය
The editorial notes that the 52nd independence anniversary arrives as fear of death returns, though ending that fear was a slogan of the 1991 impeachment movement and of the rulers now in power. It lists death threats, murders of local opposition activists, threats to journalists and rights activists, and attacks on a famous actress and a singing couple, and urges all sections to unite as artists did to defeat this campaign before the parliamentary election.
කලාකරුවොත් මරණ බියෙන්
After the presidential election thugs burned down the house of actress Anoja Weerasinghe for campaigning for the UNP, and later raided the Mattegoda home of singers Rookantha and Chandralekha, holding a pistol to Rookantha’s mouth, cutting the couple’s hair and robbing them. Threats have also reached Dharmasiri Bandaranayake and Upulshantha Sannasgala. The piece quotes Weerasinghe likening herself to Hecuba and asks what Vijaya Kumaratunga would have said.
ජනාධිපති ඝාතන කුමන්ත්රණ කතාව හා කුමාර් පොන්නම්බලම් ඝාතනය
Ivan pays tribute to Kumar Ponnambalam as the boldest political commentator in the country, killed before his reply to the President’s warning to Tamils in Colombo could be published. He questions the shadowy ‘National Front Against Tigers’ that claimed the murder, likening it to the state-created death squads of the JVP’s second uprising, and criticises state media for spinning the attempt on the President into a plot involving businessmen, journalists and the UNP, as J.R. Jayewardene did before his referendum.