සම්බාධක දංගෙඩිය මුවවිට සතුටින් කල් ගෙවන ජාතියක්
With the UN human rights investigation under way, Ivan warns that the government is ignoring the danger of sanctions, which no country has escaped unharmed. A small country’s foreign policy should seek safety, not confrontation with the United States and Europe. He criticises the government’s false show of innocence over alleged wartime abuses and the continuing hardship of Tamils in the North five years after the war.
ජාතියේ අන්ධ ගමන
On 15 July 2014 the President appointed foreign experts, including Sir Desmond de Silva, Sir Geoffrey Nice and David Crane, to advise the Paranagama commission, a sudden reversal of the government’s stand against foreign involvement. Ivan asks what the move is for, given the Defence Secretary’s long hostility, and argues that the government failed to foresee that accountability after the war could not be avoided. Having leaned on China and adopted an anti-Western line, Sri Lanka is on a blind journey that its strategic position makes dangerous.
ජාතියේ අන්ධකාරය
Starting from Gandhi’s view of struggle, Ivan examines the militarisation of Sri Lanka since 1971: by global indices it is among the most militarised countries in South Asia, and the forces grew hugely for the final war. He asks who is responsible for the rebellions, citing Bertrand Russell on the state, argues that the nation owes a debt to all who suffered, and warns that five years after the war the army has not been reduced and the national mood, driven by secret political movements, has turned against human rights.
ගෝඨාභයගේ හෙවණැල්ල
Ivan credits Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa with driving the war to a conclusion, but argues that he failed at what must follow the defeat of an internal rebellion: the humane rehabilitation of the defeated, as after 1971 and 1989, and letting a people mourn its dead. His gravest wrongs, Ivan writes, were the killing of criminals without trial, which continued after the war, and his patronage of extremist groups, from the halal campaign to the Beruwala and Aluthgama violence, which threatens to undo the peace won by defeating Prabhakaran.
ගල් පර්වතය අයිස් පර්වතයක් බවට පත්වීම
Reading the March 2014 Western and Southern provincial council results, Ivan finds that the government’s vote, once rock-solid, has begun to melt, most of all in the populous Western Province. The UNP remains divided and the rise of General Fonseka’s party is notable. He warns that the government is playing with fire by defying the UN Human Rights Council, since Sri Lanka as a UN member cannot escape scrutiny of the violence used to crush its rebellions.
ජිනීවා යෝජනාවේ ප්රතිවිපාක ගැන
After the Human Rights Council’s March 2014 resolution on accountability and reconciliation, Ivan argues that in the modern world no war, internal or external, ends without an accounting. Stirring patriotic feeling is easy, but the public, used to the open economy since 1977, will not bear the cost of sanctions. If the government keeps acting headstrong, sanctions will follow, and the ruin of the country will be written against Mahinda Rajapaksa’s name.
වරද කාගේද අපේද? මහින්දගේද?
Ivan argues that once the country turned to violence, both rebels and the state came to rule through fear and to believe only their own convictions. The state crushed the Sinhala youth rebellion, then the Tamil one, and in the process the South killed Wijeweera and many of its own. The tragedy, he writes, is that after these victories the country learned nothing: there was no Emperor Asoka turning from war to righteousness, only a triumphalism that left the nation where it started. Blame lies with society as well as with Mahinda Rajapaksa.
ජනාධිපති හිතුවක්කාරී නොවී නැවත සිතා බලන තැනකට නොගියහොත් ඇතිවිය හැක්කේ මහා විනාශයකි.
As the March 2014 Geneva resolution approaches, Ivan argues that a head of state is the country’s temporary trustee, not its owner, and that the President is gambling the nation’s fate. The media and religious leaders are failing to explain the danger, and the government’s claim of a Western conspiracy is empty. No country can survive in isolation; accountability for the end of the war should be dealt with at home, and the government must reconsider before sanctions follow.
එකක් කඩතොලු වසා ගන්නට ගොස් දෙකක් කඩතොලු හදා ගැනීම
Ahead of the March 2014 Human Rights Council session, where the High Commissioner was to report on Sri Lanka, Ivan warns that the government is making things worse by putting the President himself at the head of the Geneva fight. He compares the two JVP risings and the LTTE war, three youth rebellions crushed by force, and argues that after defeating the LTTE Mahinda Rajapaksa had a rare chance to heal the nation and win international respect, but instead undermined the rule of law and turned manageable problems into international crises.
චෝගම් ආශ්රයෙන් උගත හැකි පාඩම්
CHOGM exposed the depth of Sri Lanka’s crisis, Ivan argues: foreign lawyers were refused visas for a Bar Association event, when Param Cumaraswamy had once come freely to criticise the judiciary. The government cannot investigate war-time abuses because it fears the armed forces it now leans on, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa would not welcome it. Every insurrection and its suppression was brutal; Ivan judges the army’s conduct against the LTTE less savage than in 1989 and rejects the 40,000 figure, yet accepts crimes such as the Trincomalee killings. Sirimavo Bandaranaike prosecuted Premawathie Manamperi’s killers; Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown no such courage.