ඇමරිකාව හා ශ්රී ලංකාව
Bin Laden was a terrorist leader who had become a great threat to America, and America had the right to destroy him — we can be glad of it too. But America paid an enormous price for a partial victory: it overthrew the governments of two countries, and hundreds of thousands had to be killed to put down the unrest that followed.
මූන්ට හෝ මූන්ගේ කමිටුවට හෝ බැණවැදීම අර්බුදයට විසඳුමක් වන්නේ නැත
If Sri Lanka fails to overcome the confusion the report of the Secretary-General’s advisory committee has created, and will go on creating, then all the great hopes the victory in the war gave the country will collapse. The government should make meeting this crisis with self-confidence the first and largest item on its political agenda.
ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ, දෙමළ අර්බුදය හා එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ සංවිධානය
The disagreement between Sri Lanka and the United Nations over the war against the LTTE is ripening into something that will go a long way, and personal factors have influenced its growth more than they should have. The way Sri Lanka responded when the UN asked its questions of a member state was neither right nor fair: what was needed instead of anger was a calm explanation.
ප්රඥාවන්ත ප්රවේශයක අවශ්යතාව
The recommendations of the panel of experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General may work as a factor damaging Sri Lanka’s progress, and the challenge arising from them may be as large as the one Prabhakaran posed and more complicated than that. It can still be settled to our advantage, or with the damage kept small, and doing that means changing the whole approach.
කිරි කළයට ගොම දැමීම
The prime minister told parliament during the emergency debate that the intelligence services had information about training at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, aimed at killing Indian leaders and re-establishing the LTTE in Sri Lanka. If there is no true basis for it, Ivan replies, talk of that kind can do the country real harm — it can discourage the foreign investment Sri Lanka is hoping for.
සීසර්ගේ දේ සීසර්ටම දිය යුතුය
A member of the Tamil alliance charged in parliament that 200 of the 500 tractors India gave to farmers in the north had been handed to two state institutions. If that is true it is a wrong, and putting it right is the government’s responsibility. Resettlement and the projects planned for that region must be carried forward without a break, and life there brought back to normal quickly.
වාර්ගික සමගිය ශක්තිමත් කිරීම
On the morning of the 13th there was a friendly but heated exchange of views between the president and the newspaper editors and heads of media institutions, and one thing the president said with feeling deserves everyone’s attention. From there Ivan works through the defeat of Prabhakaran, the war crimes allegations, and the need to be rid of the politics of division.
ජයග්රහණයේ වටිනාකම බොඳ කරගැනීම
Fonseka’s arrest, whatever the grounds, dulls the shine of Rajapaksa’s victory and can be read as a move to head off an election petition. Ivan sets out the opposition’s crisis at that moment: Fonseka wanted to keep the swan symbol and the leadership that came with it, believing he had lifted the UNP’s base from two million votes to 4.1 million, while Wickremesinghe insisted on the elephant. Privately, Ivan writes, Wickremesinghe was relieved by the scale of the defeat — a narrow loss would have made Fonseka unchallengeable — and on the day of the arrest sent word through Mangala Samaraweera offering nomination under the elephant. The JVP is in the deeper crisis, having first approached Sarath Nanda Silva before settling on Fonseka, and may now win no seats at all. Ivan judges them the most remarkable political movement in the country, undone by an inability to revise an old doctrine for a changed world.
ජයග්රහණය හා ඉදිරි ගමන
Rajapaksa’s re-election was large but its limits are visible. Ivan contrasts Wickremesinghe’s acceptance of defeat in 2005, decided by 180,786 votes, with Fonseka’s refusal to concede without explaining why the result is dishonest — a soldier new to politics who misread his crowds and campaigned believing defeat impossible. Both sides broke the law: the government used state media and resources as every government has since 1977, while the opposition used overseas websites and an FM station to spread false reports that the President had fled to India and the Elections Commissioner was under house arrest. The alliance behind Fonseka was held together by nothing but hostility to Rajapaksa, and included men who had accused him of Lasantha Wickrematunge’s murder. The anti-Rajapaksa revolt was largely urban, and the victory drew almost no Tamil, up-country Tamil or Muslim support. Infrastructure spending in the north and east has not answered the political question beneath it.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය ජනතාව භේද කරන තරගයක් නොවිය යුතුය
Government figures have attacked the Tamil National Alliance’s decision to back Sarath Fonseka, one claiming it could revive terrorism. The alliance did serve the LTTE’s programme, but out of fear rather than conviction; with the LTTE defeated its representatives can act freely, and its local councillors have sung the national anthem. Backing one of the two main candidates is better than a boycott or a separate candidate. Fonseka, once a hardline Sinhala nationalist, has drawn wide minority support. The Vaddukoddai declaration ruined the Tamil people as much as the country, and the LTTE’s defeat opens space for a united society of equal citizens. Both candidates have a duty to make this an election that moves the country forward rather than one that sows division.