ශ්රේෂ්ඨත්වය පරිපූර්ණ කිරීම
Judging by the weapons taken and the infrastructure found, Ivan writes, another decade of
the LTTE would have been past imagining — and both the wars and the peace talks had
strengthened its de facto state rather than dissolving it. Mahinda Rajapaksa is therefore
the greatest of the country’s leaders since independence; but the greatness is not complete,
and completing it means opening every window to a national argument about what Sri Lanka
should now become.
ප්රභාකරන්ගේ විනාශය
Prabhakaran’s organisation was thought unbeatable and fell like a great tree. Ivan argues
that had he accepted defeat as Hitler did — taking his own life to release his followers —
the war could have ended without harm to the civilians, and that instead he made them his
shield. Setting him beside Wijeweera, he finds two able men whom a particular political
climate turned cruel, and asks what kind of country would not have done that to them.
ප්රඥාවෙන් ප්රශ්න බේරාගමු
අප රටක් වශයෙන් සිටින්නේ තීරණාත්මක තැනකය. එල්ටීටීඊය ආරක්ෂක පවුරක් කරගෙන සිටින සිවිල් ජනයාට බරපතළ හානියක් ඇති නොවන ලෙස එම ජනතාව අතර සැඟවී සිටින එල්ටීටීඊ නායකයන් හා කාර්යධරයන් යටත් කරගැනීම හෝ විනාශ කිරීම සිදුවන්නේ කෙසේද යන සංකීර්ණ ප්රශ්න කෙරෙහි ලෝක අවධානය යොමුවී තිබේ. ඒ ගැන ලෝක මට්ටමෙන් කෙරෙන වාද විවාද ඇති අතර, ලෝකයේ පවතින එම උද්වේගකර […]
වර්ග සංහාර භාෂණය ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Ivan returns to Bhashana, who reads the war as a long-planned extermination on the model of
Hitler’s and Rwanda’s, and notes that in all his writing since leaving the JVP for the
LTTE’s cause there is not one criticism of the LTTE. He sets the 730 days of Wijeweera’s
rebellion, fought with primitive weapons, against the 1,095 days of Prabhakaran’s, fought
with modern ones, and invites Bhashana to do the arithmetic of the dead himself.
යුද්ධයෙන් ජයගැනීම හා ප්රචාරක යුද්ධයෙන් පරාජය වීම
The government won the war for territory and lost the argument about how it ended. Ivan
credits it with everything the military victory required — rebuilding the forces’ morale,
ending the factionalism among them, holding to the decision under international pressure —
and finds the same government without a case it could put to the world, when the strongest
argument was available to it: that letting a movement succeed by holding hundreds of
thousands hostage teaches the lesson to every other city.
ගියරය වෙනස් කිරීමට කාලය පැමිණ තිබේ
The war for territory is won, and Ivan argues the country must now change the voice it
speaks in. A degree of defiance suited a government fighting against international
obstruction; facing a humanitarian problem of this size and needing the aid to solve it, the
same tone will not do. There is nothing here to hide, and the way to more help is patient
listening and patient explanation.
ආවේගයෙන් ක්රියාකිරීම අත්හැරිය යුතුය
With six square kilometres left and under one per cent of the objective outstanding, Ivan
argues there is no case for haste. The decision to stop air and artillery attacks and free
the remaining civilians with light weapons is the right one and should not be misread as
abandoning the operation; and with an Indian election under way and the reconstruction bill
to be met from abroad, the country should be opening doors rather than closing them.
ඇත්ත ඇති සැටියෙන් දැකීම
Ivan answers two replies to his article on the genocide claim, apologises for having left a
professor unnamed, and turns to what international law actually says: who counts as a
combatant, what carpet bombing forbids, which three rights survive an emergency, and what
the International Criminal Court could and could not be asked to do. He closes on a
comparison few make — the caste composition of those killed by Wijeweera’s followers and by
Prabhakaran’s, and of those killed by the forces suppressing both.
මහින්ද කොයිබටද?
Whether by luck, practical sense or sheer resolve, Ivan writes, Mahinda Rajapaksa will enter
history as the leader who turned modern Sri Lankan politics. But defeating Prabhakaran
militarily is not enough: he must be defeated politically as well, which means bringing the
country’s Tamils to accept that life within the Sri Lankan state is better and fairer than
life in his separate one. A great leader is not satisfied with half a greatness.
සටන්කාමයට වඩා දැන් අවශ්යව ඇත්තේ ප්රඥාවයි
With the LTTE’s territory gone and its leaders holding civilians as a shield, Ivan writes
that the rules of war require a defeated side to surrender — Hitler’s suicide was a signal
to his army to do so — and that Prabhakaran has chosen instead to maximise the harm to his
own people. Whether the forces can take the remaining leaders without that harm will decide
how the victory is remembered, and how India’s election reads it.