පිල්ලේගේ නිරීක්ෂණ
Whatever Sri Lanka gained by inviting Navi Pillay, Ivan argues, it lost through a media campaign that painted her as a blood-drinking demon and a minister’s lewd offer to marry her — insults recalling Premadasa’s jibe at Indira Gandhi. The government undoes its own good work, as in the North, and rules through a giant among dwarfs, unlike Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s or even J.R.’s cabinets. Pillay spoke within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Sri Lanka signed; her warning of drift towards authoritarianism is one Sri Lankans themselves can see.
පමාවී ඇස් ඇරීම
The government’s invitation to UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay, a new commission on disappearances and arrests over the Trincomalee killings show, Ivan says, that it has finally grasped world realities — too late. Firmness during the war was right; afterwards it should have changed gear and cooperated with the UN as any member must, like a cricket board with the ICC. Instead, swayed by extremists who believed a China–Russia–Iran bloc was rising, it picked fights with the West and India. He recounts the meeting after the Darusman report where that line prevailed.
නයාට ගසා පොල්ල වරද්දා ගැනීම
Ivan argues that the government’s impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake has backfired: it expected her to resign, but the weak charges, the backing she has won from lawyers and the public, and international scrutiny ahead of the March Human Rights Council session have put it on the defensive. He lists this as the fourth clash between executive and judiciary under the 1978 system, after Neville Samarakoon’s time and Mark Fernando’s under Kumaratunga, and warns of a constitutional crisis if Parliament ignores a Supreme Court order, while noting that the judiciary is not blameless for the decline it now suffers.
රාජපක්ෂ ආණ්ඩුවට වැරදුණේ කොතැනද?
Ivan warns that Sri Lanka is again drifting into conflict with India, repeating J.R. Jayewardene’s mistake of the 1980s, when the Vadamarachchi operation led to Indian intervention. The Rajapaksa government, he argues, rightly won the war but had no vision for peace: it failed to account for the losses of war and allegations of atrocities, forgot that it had defeated a domestic group rather than a foreign army, and did not keep its promise to India of a political solution. Much has been done for resettlement and rehabilitation, but not what was essential — reform of the whole system of government.
ප්රතිසන්ධානය හා ගෝඨාභය සාධකය
Ivan rejects Uvindu Kurukulasuriya’s website report that at a dinner with Minister DEW Gunasekera he had plotted to save the government and blamed Gotabaya Rajapaksa for every problem; the report, he says, rested on a third-hand source. The talks were among many long one-to-one discussions he held with politicians of all sides to test support for a national programme to rebuild the state and nation, which he believes many would accept. Leaders need not be ideal — South Africa’s transition, Cromwell and Lenin show that — so the chance must not be missed. He credits Gotabaya Rajapaksa with the war’s strategy, with bringing Sarath Fonseka forward, and with resettlement and rehabilitation, but says abductions, including of Frontline Socialist Party activists, and extra-legal drives against drug dealers are squandering that honour; he must adapt to peace or lose everything.
ජිනීවා අර්බුදය-
Sri Lanka was right to oppose the US resolution at the Human Rights Council, Ivan writes, but its campaign damaged the country’s name — ending with Minister Mervyn Silva’s boast that he had Poddala Jayantha beaten and would punish others who went to Geneva. He warns against the view that the balance of power is shifting to China, arguing that India, soon larger and younger and closer to Western values, matters more to a country that lives ‘in India’s mouth’. National sovereignty is relative: as a UN member bound by the ICCPR, Sri Lanka cannot treat the Council’s action as unlawful. The war was fought within a civilised framework, but the Foreign Ministry lost the propaganda war, letting support fall from 32 votes in 2009 to 15 in 2012. The best course is to go beyond the resolution with a national programme to rebuild the state.
ඥානාන්විත වියයුතු තරමට ඥානාන්විත නොවීම
The government’s counter-campaign against the US resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, Ivan argues, damaged Sri Lanka’s image. It had a clear strategy to win the war but none for what followed: an angry Tamil diaspora that saw the defeat as genocide, a rift with the US after Colombo first agreed and then refused a plan to evacuate Prabhakaran and other leaders, and a drift towards China, Iran and Russia. Just as Western pressure eased to a call to implement the LLRC’s recommendations, the government failed to adapt. He names four failures: no nation-building reorganisation after the war, neglect of relations with the Western markets, broken promises to India over 13-plus, and slowness in restoring normality, ending abductions and withdrawing the forces from civilian life.
කොමිෂන් සභා නිර්දේශ
Publishing the Lessons Learnt Commission’s report, and holding a census to find the true number of those who died in the final war in which the LTTE was defeated, can be counted two very important forward steps.
යුද්ධය ගැන ආපසු හැරී බැලීමක්
Ivan had planned to write about the war as the subject connected to his review of 2005 to 2010 — the de facto state the LTTE ran, the war that ended its existence, and the great changes it has made in the social, economic and political picture. The leadership contest between Ranil and Karu tempted him to write about that instead, and he judged the war the more important thing for understanding the political picture.
උගත් පාඩම් කොමිසම හා උගතයුතු පාඩම්
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s report has been handed to the president, and what it finds and recommends is not yet clear. It is a commission that drew international attention: the British foreign secretary said Sri Lanka should show its honesty by making the report public, and the government says it will be put before parliament in December.