From correspondents in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 04:34 PM IST
Sri Lanka's military court Tuesday jailed 305 army deserters for failing to respond to the general amnesty offered by the military since May.
'Sri Lankan Army's Courts Martial, following imposition of punishment on 106 convicted army deserters, have handed them over to the Welikada Prisons Headquarters Tuesday for imprisonment. One more batch of 199 convicted army deserters are also scheduled to be handed for imprisonment on Wednesday upon completion of their legal proceedings,' the military said in a statement here.
These deserters were arrested by the Military Police and respective police stations in the recent past as part of a crackdown on army deserters for their failure to honour the general amnesty.
The convicts would serve a jail sentence between three months and one year 'in accordance with respective rulings determined, based on the periods of desertion'.
'At present, several hundreds of such deserters are scheduled to be tried by Courts Martial in the next few weeks,' the military statement said.
It, however, said that over 7,500 army deserters have made use of the general amnesty and surrendered to the army in May and June alone.
The Sri Lankan Army is carrying out an onslaught against Tamil Tigers in the war-torn north over the past one year.
Defence authorities Tuesday said the advancing troops had captured yet another 'strategic bastion' from the rebels in the northern Wanni region amid fierce resistance.
Most Recent Comments
The morale in a large section of the Srilankan army is very low. this is due to lack of training of those soldiers. The LTTE is fighting mostly guerilla war. It is difficult to fight back. Therfore training must be provided more thoroughly if LTTE is to be brought to their knees. Not amnesty, how many times can it be given.
The figures of army deserters don't seem to add up unless time lined. It was officially announced prior to October 2005 that there were some 65,000 army deserters. Hence the figure of army deserters should be of the order of "several tens of thousands, not several hundreds which is misleading. This apart what is going on in the north is a continuation of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Tamil people from their homelands by a race and religious bound state, clearly crimes against humanity and a war crime. The President and his political party canvassed their electors recently in two southern provinces to kill "all LTTE" and won handsomely. The reference based on past and present ground situation of fatalities and other crimes can only be a generic reference to Tamils, clearly signifying a screwed up murdereous "democracy".
View all comments »