රෝමය ගිනි ගනිද්දි නීරෝ වීණා වාදනය කළා සේ, රටට ඉතිරි වී ඇත්තේ ද වීණා වාදනය පමණය
Like it or not, the Sri Lankan state is close to complete collapse, and what can be done depends on understanding why. Ivan works through examples of institutional failure, adding the Chief Justice, the Public Trustee and the Commissioner of Registration of Persons to cases already discussed, to show that every arm of the state is breaking down.
What Can Happen?
Victor Ivan returns to Johan Galtung’s warning that Sri Lanka might end up temporarily under United Nations administration if it fails to manage its crises. Having read Ivan’s An Unfinished Struggle, Galtung reasoned that a judiciary decayed to that degree implied equal decay elsewhere, and that only a failing state deteriorates so far. Ivan’s test is whether serious mistakes get corrected, and he finds no mechanism that does. An election was held without an elections commission because the President twice refused to approve a list the constitutional council had vetted and cleared; parliament and the judiciary both declined to intervene; and with the council’s own term expired, the police and public service commissions cannot be constituted either, making every transfer, promotion and disciplinary action in those services unconstitutional. A year after the tsunami, 6% of the required houses are built — seventeen years at that rate — and the country cannot yet say how many of its dead were men and how many women. He then reads the party system as collapsing: Thondaman reduced to seeking LTTE shelter, the UNP too decayed to reform itself, the SLFP surviving only on state power. Only the JVP and the LTTE retain vigour, and both, he argues, have spent their history accelerating the state’s decay.
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.
එළඹෙන වසර සුනාමි ප්රතිසංස්කරණ වසර බවට පත් කරමු
A year after the tsunami killed 40,000 and displaced a million, the editorial says the country owes the survivors a quick return to normal life, assesses what has and has not been done, and compares the JVP’s politics without arms to the LTTE’s politics with them.
රට යන්නේ කොයිබට ද?
Fifty-seven years after independence the country lurches from one crisis to the next, and hardly a single field gives cause for satisfaction. No ruler has turned it round, and the editorial points to a head of state placed above the law by presidential immunity as one root of failure.
සුනාමි හානි පුනරුත්ථාපනය
The Auditor General’s report on tsunami recovery up to 30 June 2005 is now public. Of 48,974 houses destroyed, only 1,055, about 2 per cent of the need, had been completed by 4 August, and the report lists irregularities in the Rs 5,000 allowance payments. Under the subhead ‘Do we need more talk about the country’s failure?’, the editorial says the figures speak for the country’s level of civilisation.
සිය කැමැත්තෙන් විනාශයට යන රටක්
Lacking the wisdom to untie simple knots, Sri Lanka has let them grow into tangles, and the people pay the price. The editorial notes that the investigation into Judge Ambepitiya’s murder identified an underworld figure as the mastermind, and urges voters to make the candidates present, without lies, their vision for the country’s problems.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය හා අවිචාරවත් නායකයින්
Any democracy needs a balance between legislature, executive and judiciary. Sri Lanka is sliding into a failed state, though its educated class rejects the label, and the neglect of the 17th Amendment shows it: there is still no Constitutional Council, and neither candidate seems interested in setting one up.
A Country Destroyed by Leaders
Victor Ivan argues that Sri Lanka has become, or is fast becoming, a failed state — a term its academics resist because they fear UN administration, while making no serious intervention to correct the country’s course. His test is the constitution: legislature, executive and judiciary alike decline to respect it, and none treats honouring it as a condition of the system’s survival. The 17th Amendment provides his illustration. A presidential campaign is underway with no elections commission in place, the President having refused to approve a name the constitutional council investigated and cleared. The elections commissioner, past retirement age and unable to leave his post because no commission exists, went to court and was told there was nothing the judiciary could do; parliament did not debate the matter at all. The constitutional council itself has been dormant for months, leaving Court of Appeal vacancies unfilled, with the IGP retiring in November and the terms of the Police and Public Service Commissions expiring. Appointing new members falls to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition — the two men now contesting the presidency, neither of whom appears interested.
රට කොයිබට ද?
The private bus strike of the 9th against new traffic fines brought transport to a halt. The editorial finds public transport in the same chaos as everything else and proposes proper licensing and training for bus crews, paid for by the state while they train.