නව සමාජ ව්යාපාරයක් සඳහා කතිකාවතක්
Does Sri Lanka need a new social and political movement, and what vision and form should it take? Ivan reports on a discussion on the 17th that brought together artists, professionals and others across ideology, class, religion and language, and on the ‘Prayatna’ initiative, arguing that a country that never fought for its freedom never united its divided people.
The tsunami can become a political tsunami
A month on from the tsunami, Victor Ivan warns that mishandling the recovery could produce a political tsunami destructive to the government and the opposition alike. He attacks the 100-metre coastal buffer imposed by TAFREN: damage reached 400 metres inland at Telwatta and in Galle town while some houses at the water’s edge stood untouched, so the rule bears no relation to where the danger actually lay. It also bites only on the unlucky — those whose houses survive may stay, those whose houses were destroyed may not rebuild — and leaves the displaced waiting in camps for a house in a location of the government’s choosing, or buying land themselves. Pacific nations facing the same hazard do not clear their coasts, relying on warning systems and tsunami-resistant construction instead. Ivan argues that resettlement without consent breaches both UN policy on the displaced and the constitutional protection of private property, and sets out an alternative: let landowners rebuild where they lived, give them the per-capita sum the government would have spent, extend credit to ruined businesses, and revive economic life quickly.
දැන් පවතින තත්ත්වය
A numbered twenty-point programme for the country after the tsunami: facing the challenge with a practical vision, an all-party government for two years, restarting peace talks with interim administration for the North-East that the Muslims can accept, rebuilding ten symbolic towns, reorganising the state, a higher court to settle disputes, and a new constitution before elections.
ඛේදවාචකය හා රාජ්යය
The tsunami took some 25,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. Ivan sees a silver lining in the way it let people look past their divisions, but argues that it struck a state already collapsing into farce, and finds the Rs 100 million set aside for emergency relief smaller than the budget for restoring tanks.
Overcoming the disaster
Victor Ivan treats the December 2004 tsunami as a test the Sri Lankan state failed. Warning instruments existed and went unused; the armed forces were instructed too late to be effective outside the north-east where they were already concentrated. Forty-eight hours after the waves the government allocated Rs 100 million in urgent relief — a hundred rupees a head for a million destitute — and eight days later the President’s office put reconstruction at Rs 100 billion against the Central Bank’s provisional Rs 400 billion, a sum equal to a full year of government spending or three years of Tokyo consortium aid. In twenty minutes the country lost lives and property comparable to twenty years of war. Ivan argues the two catastrophes cannot be addressed separately, since housing tsunami victims alone would affront those displaced by the fighting, and calls for a two-year all-party government charged with physical reconstruction and with enacting a new constitution — something he thinks civil society will have to compel the parties to accept.
විනාශය කරා යන රටක්
Neither main bloc looks able to win enough seats to govern alone. The editorial warns that a constitution shaped for one-man rule has bent every institution to it, leaving a country without wise leaders, an independent public service, an independent judiciary or a responsible press.
රටේ කාලකණ්ණිකම නිදහස
Written for Independence Day, a survey of why the whole social and political order has decayed: imperialism and colonial rule, an independence received as a gift rather than won, a party system that breeds autocratic leaders, the grip of party and family power, and a state that never became the state of all its people.
වත්ත බද්දට දි ඇස්සට දත නියවීම
The editorial argues that the government’s peace process is proceeding without any public debate on reforming the nature of the state, so that it appears to be merely a settlement of the Tamil problem. It lists wider failures, from a corrupt political system and judiciary to a preferential voting system that pushes MPs towards illicit income, warns that silence cedes public opinion to nationalist forces, and likens the government’s self-serving approach to J.R. Jayewardene’s.
චෞර රාජ්යය 2
Continuing his survey, Ivan shows how constitutions and laws are made to suit rulers, from J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 amendment and Kumaratunga’s 2000 bid to change the electoral system by buying MPs to the UNP’s tax amnesty law challenged by Nihal Sri Ameresekere. He faults Attorneys General for serving governments, and the Bribery Commission for clearing Mangala Samaraweera and ignoring evidence of state resources used in the 2001 election. Short items follow on party discipline, the President’s tales, V. Anandasangaree’s defiance of the LTTE, the JVP and Anura Bandaranaike.
චෞර රාජ්යය ප්රතිසංවිධානය කිරීම
Ivan argues that the state needs reorganising not only to resolve the ethnic conflict but because the whole political system has collapsed. He examines Parliament, the world’s costliest, whose members enjoy tax-free pay, pensions after five years, duty-free cars they resell illegally and subsidised meals, while its high posts and public accounts committees fail; and the executive presidency, with its immunity, private security force of 1,500 and unaudited President’s Fund, whose occupants all grew rich.