I'm not sure I would say all-out tyranny, but certainly there is a growing concentration of power, and there has been during the final years of the war, and I think at that point it was designed in part to control the state apparatus so tightly that they could do whatever they needed to beat the LTTE including what we suspect were many violations of international humanitarian law, disappearances, murders, etc.
But the machine that was used, the heavily militarized and highly concentrated form of power used to win the war, has kept running on and grown worse, I think, and one of its targets has been journalists. So I did mention in my long list the fact that there has been continued impunity for the dozen or more attacks on journalists, including many murders. I think there's ongoing widely recognized self-censorship among almost all the media.
That said, there's still some resistance. There's still the ability of some in some contexts to speak out. With the trade unions, there are regular strikes, and the university teachers spoke up in an important strike a year ago. There are still voices. It's not complete tyranny, I don't think, and traditionally, Sri Lankan people are very active politically and very robust in their criticisms of governments. So I think one of the striking things is the Rajapaksa government's heavy concentration of power. Historically that is an aberration in Sri Lanka and one hopes that ultimately the balance will rebalance and other voices will emerge in some effective way.