Every Presidential speech should not be labelled with the hazy moniker 'address to the nation' particularly when it is a mere case of stating one's position with regard to some of the current issues of the day - issues on which the President has been seen to be making contradictory statements whenever she pleases.

In that light, we take the so - called address to the nation by the President last Thursday as a statement of her definitive position with regard to the aforementioned issues, which are of tremendous public import. It is good to see the President reading from prepared text, even though, as we understand it, she has been rewriting and rehashing it until an hour before she actually went on the air.

We hope the last - minute adjustments in her peroration had more to do with style of presentation than content - else it would betray a grave state of confusion on matters of obvious public importance.

As for the content, if she meant that peace talks with the LTTE are in order, provided that there is no need to bend over backwards to please the terrorists at the expense of others, and that privatization was in order provided that there was a safety net for the consumers while not compromising the vital security interests of the state, and that she was prepared to work with the UNF government towards cohabitation and not engage in petty politics, then we can happily agree with these stated positions.

Now that her diffused positions on these issues have crystallized into one solid unequivocal stand, we must urge that she contains herself (the way her own party moderates have urged her) and not shoot from the lip each time she goes to Anuradhapura or Pilimathalawa or any such location. She must realize, as she seems to have by all indications, that as the Head of State she has been a part of the problem in the nation's perilous predicament. She must realize that stateswomanship on her part, and statesmanship on the part of the leaders of the UNF is the imperative of the current moment

Eastern quagmire
For many readers of this newspaper, the East probably conjures images of
golden sands, a spectacular natural harbour, and the elixir-like hot springs. Today however the East is definitely in hot water, thanks to the course of ethnic politics that has been long practised in this country. There is a part authentic, and part spurious fear among the equally represented communities of the Eastern province that the proposed administrative structures for that province will one day pit these communities at the mercy of each other.

While the administrative structures need to be worked out, the recent incidents in the East indicate the urgent necessity for Colombo to run an Operations room which will co-ordinate and be in constant touch with the political, security, religious and civil society representatives of the East to move swiftly to avoid a repeat of such occurrences by means of an early warning system. The East is vulnerable now to the forces of destabilization. It is the East that is poised to be the flashpoint of the immediate future. The Government barely stumbled through the last three incidents that flared up in the East earlier this month.

Though the government managed to survive and sort out the recent violence in the East, it should be better prepared to be in a position of knowing what is happening there, without showing an indifference to that part of the country as if it is already dismembered and separate from the rest of this nation.

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