I'm afraid it is absolutely a fair assessment. I think things are getting worse. I think there is a strengthening of a kind of, as I say, xenophobic ultra-nationalism. The problem is it's very difficult. This war was so horrible and there is no doubt there's a generation of Sinhala people who grew up scared of bomb attacks, scared of terror attacks. There was this real culture of fear, so in a sense you can understand to some extent the relief that the war is over. The trouble is that what is happening is very dangerous, because many people hoped that despite the events of the last few months of the war, a hand of friendship and reconciliation would be held out.
In fact, what is happening is an absolutely brutal repression of the Tamils in the north. There has been a consolidation of this thing that underlay what happened at the end of the war, which is that the Tigers and the civilians were regarded as indistinguishable, and the Tamils are still regarded as the enemy. Even though the Tigers are utterly destroyed, the perception that the Tamils are in a sense all supporters of terror and all dangerous to the state is very much part of what motivates people.
There's also a kind of brutalization as well, because the reason the war ended as brutally and violently as it did.... I don't think any previous president had the courage, if you like, to sacrifice so many of his own people to end the war. There was an absolute brutalism. It should never be forgotten that an awful lot more soldiers in the Sri Lankan army, Sinhala soldiers for the vast majority, died than did Tiger fighters in the last two months in terms of actual combat deaths. There was a brutal contempt and disregard for the health, safety, and well-being of their own soldiers. There's a kind of brutalized culture within the Sri Lankan army, which I think is also playing a part in the repression of the Tamils in the north.
This is very dangerous because quite clearly, what will happen is.... If you're able to look at my film you will see lots of photographs of very sweet, damaged six-, seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds mourning and crying and in a terrible state. At the moment those are just utterly destroyed and damaged individuals. It's impossible to stress how awful and how traumatized the community in the north is. There is nobody there who hasn't lost people, who hasn't seen their mother, father, brother, or sister blown up in front of their eyes. They are now growing up watching their parents—if they survive—and their brothers and their sisters being repressed and brutalized and allowed no freedom and allowed no political agency. What's going to happen to these kids when they're 15 or 16 if there isn't justice, if there isn't an international inquiry, if there isn't a sense that the international community has taken this seriously?
There's an awful inevitability about what those 16-year-olds will think. They will think there is only one way to achieve justice and that's to take it into their own hands. The potential for history to repeat itself is just too awful to contemplate. This is why I think the whole question of setting up an independent inquiry or finding some mechanism for ensuring there is justice is not an academic exercise in historical accountability; it's an urgent task if further bloodshed is to be avoided.