Colombo announces another amnesty for deserted SLA soldiers

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 November 2008, 16:56 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka has declared another two weeks' amnesty for deserted soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army to return for duty in battle front. The amnesty period commenced last Saturday and would conclude on November 15, according to a press release by the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry. Fifteen-thousand soldiers have deserted the Sri Lankan military.

The GoSL had declared several times amnesty for SLA deserted soldiers numbering about fifteen thousand. But the response had been poor.

In the meantime the military police of the Sri Lanka Army and Sri Lanka Police had rounded up about three thousand deserted soldiers and officers and brought them before military tribunal. Most of them had been sent to jail and inquiry against others has been pending.

The government has said there would not be any more amnesty to the deserted soldiers when the current amnesty period ends on November 15.

Thereafter full scale search operation would be launched for nabbing deserted soldiers, media sources quoted defense ministry.

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