Okay, I'll just make one final point, which may be useful. It is a perception that I had, and it may or may not be useful to you. I'll do it very briefly.
What seems to be happening in Sri Lanka is that the government knows it has to stay in power or it's all over, as it were. The regime is very much a nepotistic family-run regime with a great deal of corruption, a great deal of family business tied up in it, a great deal of financial and business interests linked with the family. Of course, there are these war crime allegations and the very serious evidence of war crimes hanging over them, so they know in a sense that they have to stay in power or it's all over.
I have discussed this with Sri Lankans whom I managed to have conservations with when we were fairly sure we weren't being listened to, and it seems that the regime is increasingly reliant on a very—I mentioned the word paranoia earlier—xenophobic, paranoiac, increasingly ultra-nationalist, and increasingly, in conventional terminology, ultra-right base which they use to maintain their support, and to maintain a rather dangerous support of organizations such as the BBS.
They increasingly seem to be less concerned about taking with them the Sinhala liberal establishment, if you like, the lawyers, the law society, and various.... I use “liberal” in the British sense of the word, rather than the North American sense of the word.
They don't seem to see the need to preserve the illusion of a broad democratic liberal process. They are increasingly happy to rely on this rather dangerous ultra-nationalist, xenophobic, and violent culture to hold on to power. That is a cause for deep concern.
In a sense, that is what I think lay behind Navi Pillay's comment that the country was sinking into authoritarianism. I found it quite disturbing and quite sinister. It's certainly an indication that things are getting worse rather than better.