විපතේ විශාලත්වය හා පක්ෂවල පුංචිකම
Nearly 50,000 dead and close to a million displaced in under an hour: Ivan argues that a disaster of this scale should make the parties see that none of them can solve it alone. Events are defying everyone’s calculations and leave no room for heroes; only a joint national programme can overcome the disaster and prevent a ‘political tsunami’.
රට යන්නේ අරාජිකත්වයට ද?
JVP and SLFP local leaders in Galle are fighting over who will build the town’s bus stand: the JVP says the SLFP chief minister’s Rs 4.1 million plan could be done for Rs 500,000. Despite lamps lit together for unity, the editorial finds no unity even within the government, and every institution sliding into greater confusion while Parliament loses control of public money.
ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණට දික්කසාදවීමේ හැකියාවක් නැත
The JVP is caught both ways: it perishes if it stays in the alliance and perishes if it leaves. Sidelined in the tsunami effort and critical of the power given to Tara de Mel and Harry Jayawardena, it cannot break with a President who is equally unhappy with it.
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.
දේශපාලන සුනාමියක්
Newspapers do not govern; they can only show politicians and the public the real state of the country. Under the subhead ‘The need to leave the dream world and see reality’, the piece argues that caring for tsunami survivors is the shared duty of government, opposition and public, and that policy should help shops, small businesses and fishermen restart rather than hold them back behind the 100-metre line.
ජනතාවගේ ජීවිත සමග සෙල්ලම් නො කළ යුතු ය
Instead of using the tsunami to rebuild, the country is doubling the damage. The editorial attacks the coastal buffer zone that bars survivors from returning to their land, points out that most were freehold owners, not squatters, and argues that those able to rebuild on their own land should be helped to do so.
නීතිය අතට ගැනීම
In Galle, a gang that robbed a woman of her jewellery as she was swept away on the day of the tsunami was caught by local people, who beat its leader to death before the police arrived. However brutal the man, Ivan argues, the crowd took over the work of the police and the courts because it had lost faith in both, and some police officers were themselves looting. Further notes deal with the Chief Justice and the tsunami, the Science and Technology Minister’s account of the warnings, whether the sea should be treated as a demon, and helping survivors rebuild on their own land.
රට ගොඩනගන ආණ්ඩුවේ සැලසුම
The National Planning Department’s reconstruction plan puts the cost at US$1.5 billion (Rs 145.5 billion). The piece sets out the plan’s figures by sector and district and argues that the challenge can be met only by a national programme that unites the country’s strength and knowledge.
රටක් ලෙස අප යමින් සිටින්නේ කොයිබටද? කන්දක් විළිලා වදන්නට යන්නේ මී පැටියෙක් ද?
Not even the tsunami has changed the country’s inefficient, corrupt course or its divisive thinking. The first shock released a flood of human kindness, but the editorial warns that thinking confined to the tsunami could deepen divisions, and calls for thinking on the scale of the moment.
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.