පටිසෝතගාමී හා විප්ලවකාරී ළදරු වලිප්පුව
Replying to Gamini Viyangoda’s criticism of Ravaya’s anniversary, Ivan apologises to guests, including Chitrasena’s widow Vajira, who were distressed by the security checks, which he says could not be avoided once the President was invited. The real objection, he argues, is to the President’s presence and to Ravaya’s call for reform under this government. Rajapaksa’s regime, like its predecessors, is corrupt, wasteful and arbitrary, but it is not a dictatorship: it can be changed at elections, and a reorganisation of the political system needs the consent of both government and opposition. The critics’ insistence on waiting until the regime falls looks radical but is extreme and reactionary, and he asks why such a group has been pushed to that position.
රාවයේ 25 වෙනි සංවත්සරය වෙනුවෙන් පවත්වන ලද කතාව
In the address given at Ravaya’s 25th anniversary gathering, attended by the President, the Leader of the Opposition, and the leaders of the TNA and the Muslim Congress, Ivan explains why the paper convened such an assembly. Sri Lanka, he says, stands at a historic turning point: half of its 64 years of independence were spent in bloodshed, society itself is wounded, and the political system has decayed because the country never built a united nation and a democratic society. The defeat of the JVP in 1989 and the LTTE in 2009 has removed the main obstacle to reform and exposed the system’s rot. The alternative to a destructive revolution is a national reorganisation agreed by government and opposition, including a solution to the ethnic question and the LLRC’s recommendations.
25 වැනි සමරුව හා ව්යාකූලතා
Ivan reflects on objections, among a few readers and staff, to inviting the President and other leaders to Ravaya’s 25th anniversary. Ravaya’s readers have never held one view, he says: during 1988–89 it refused to use the insurrection to topple the UNP; it helped defeat that government in 1994 but refused to profit from the new one, learning that changing governments does not change the system. The deepest split came over the war against the LTTE, which Ravaya opposed in a way Ivan now calls sometimes unfair and extreme, while he himself saw a just and winnable war; he argues that the UNP obstructed it hoping for regime change, that Prabhakaran and Wijeweera both chose guns over politics, and that the 2010 election left a hatred between the two camps that now blocks reform.
රාවය 25 වසරක පටිසෝතගාමී අභිචාරිකාව
Ahead of the 28 February celebration, this special anniversary piece describes Ravaya’s 25 years as a ‘journey against the current’ (patisotagami abhicharika). Grounded in non-violence, democracy and pluralism, it was more a movement of ideas than a magazine or newspaper: sometimes revolutionary, sometimes conservative, sympathetic to rebels but never endorsing armed revolt, and always admitting its own mistakes. Its main political lesson is that changing governments cannot produce a good society while the corrupt political system remains — a change now possible because terrorism has been defeated and the system stands exposed. Ravaya’s task, it says, is to persuade leaders and parties to reform the system through a constituent assembly before the next change of government.
දේශපාලන ක්රමය නිරුවත් කිරීම
Ivan argues that the collapse of the J.R. Jayewardene system, which N.M. Perera called a ‘hotchpotch’ of presidential systems, has only accelerated even under a popular President. Chandrika Kumaratunga seized control of public finance from Parliament and used Sarath N. Silva to break the independence of the judiciary; corruption and politicians’ reliance on local criminals for security did the rest. While Wijeweera and Prabhakaran threatened the country, the public could not see the rot; Prabhakaran’s defeat has stripped the system naked. Ivan lists fifteen recent ‘scenes’, from the Golden Key and Sakvithi collapses to the Tangalle murder of a British tourist, and calls on the President to lead a national reorganisation with all parties.
දඩිබිඩි එළවළු විප්ලවය
It is not a lie that vegetables carried in sacks are crushed and bruised and that the waste is large; investigations into it began as far back as the 1970s. The waste needs preventing, and the way it is being tackled is not good: first identify the problem properly, then find the right remedy, then explain its value to every party concerned, and then try it in selected places rather than nationally at one stroke.
අන්තර්ජාල අරාජිකවාදය යුක්තිසහගත කිරීම
Two earlier articles argued that the ethics and the laws affecting the other media should affect websites too: that reporting in any medium must rest on true facts, that those wronged by reporting built on false ones should have legal relief, and that the internet should not have a freedom to work outside that tradition.
රාජපක්ෂ පාලනයේ හත් අවුරුද්ද
Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went wrong.
නීති ඇති කිරීම හා ප්රජාතන්ත්රවාදය
The much-argued bill for the revival of underperforming enterprises and underutilised assets passed its first reading by a majority of 76 — 122 for and 46 against, with two parties in the government abstaining. That shows there is no common agreement about this law even inside the government, and the vote against was well short too.
විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ හා ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂ දේශපාලනයේ ශ්රාස්ත්රීය දුගීභාවය
Ivan opens with a telephone conversation with an educated man of some standing inside the UNP who is himself a subject of argument there, and the question he put to him. What follows is an account of the intellectual poverty on both sides, of the deceiving of party members, of family politics, and of the limits of the forward vision on offer.