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.
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.
ජීඑස්පී ප්ලස් බදු සහනය ආරක්ෂා කරගත යුතුය
Whether Sri Lanka keeps GSP+ is a measure of its diplomatic sense, Ivan writes: a member of an organisation is bound by the rules it agreed to or should leave. He points out that nothing done during the war is what is at issue, and that releasing the displaced, withdrawing the Yaksihiran indictment, pardoning Tissainayagam and passing a short law making the covenants domestically enforceable would settle it.
සමගිය හා ප්රඥාව
The politicians are looking at the southern council election and the presidential one, while the country faces war crimes allegations, the GSP+ question and the displaced. Ivan argues these can only be met if the parties set their divisions aside — and that the voice the country used during the war does not suit the moment. We are no longer entangled with Prabhakaran, he writes, but with the powers of the world.
යුද්ධය ජයගැනීමෙන් පමණක් රටට ඉදිරියට යා හැකිද?
The victory opened a space the country has not used well. Ivan grants the president the larger share of the credit and then turns to the West’s changed policy, to the covenant on civil and political rights the country has signed, and to Vietnam — which defeated a great power militarily and then spent decades as one of the poorest countries on earth. Jayewardene, he ends, made a hat to fit his own head; Rajapaksa’s task is to make one that fits the country’s.
විදේශ ප්රතිපත්තිය නැවත සලකා බැලිය යුතුයි
The foreign secretary was told to appear in person for a British visa, which the government reads as a breach of diplomatic courtesy. Ivan agrees the government’s position is right and argues that being right is not enough: a small country gains nothing by quarrelling with the Western world, and he recalls what calling Indira Gandhi a cow cost the country under Premadasa.
පෝද්දල ජයන්තට පහරදීම
After a television programme used footage of Poddala Jayantha and Sunanda Deshapriya while
alleging that some journalists were paid by the LTTE, Poddala came to Ivan and asked him to
intervene. Ivan describes what he did, what the president said when the question was put to
him, and why he thinks naming such journalists would have been ruinous — and argues that the
fault can only be corrected by looking critically back at the policy that produced it.
අපි ජයගත්තෙමු. එය ප්රමාණවත් ද?
Twenty-nine of the forty-seven members of the Human Rights Council in Geneva voted with Sri
Lanka and twelve against, which Ivan counts an important victory in the international
argument. Some violation of rights is unavoidable in any war and more so against a terrorist
movement; but the victory has created a humanitarian problem the country cannot solve
without the world’s help, and on that question it should speak with one voice.
අවතැන්වූවන් පිළිබඳ ප්රශ්න
Ivan calls the UN Secretary-General’s remark to CNN — that he had never seen camps as bad
anywhere — a bad statement, and notes that the Swedish opposition leader who visited the
same day was far less harsh. Housing three hundred thousand people is neither simple nor
quick; the camps are improving rather than worsening, the identification of cadres has to
finish before the army can hand them over, and the contractors’ opportunities to profit
should be cut back.