Guidelines for a structured amnesty to former Tamil Tiger rebels and their sympathisers are being drawn up by the government’s legal departments, but only lower level rebels will be included in the scheme, a local English newspaper reported yesterday.
The reprieve would apply to only lower level Tamil Tigers because the leadership and middle rung cadres have died in the war, the Sunday Times quoted government officials close to the process as saying.
A government official close to the process said the “mood in Sri Lanka is that of reconciliation. There is no point in trying people with little evidence of wrong doing.”
Human rights watchers estimate that close to 10,000 post-war detainees with suspected links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are being held at government safe houses even as screening of war-displaced persons continues in camps in the northern Vavuniya district.
The newspaper said a section of the government is advocating the post-apartheid South African model of integration for Sri Lanka’s deeply-polarised society.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse announced last month that the LTTE had been totally defeated with all the 15,000sq km territory formerly held by the rebels being recaptured by the government troops.
About 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced by the final battles between the government troops and rebels are now being hosted in scores of camps in the northern Vavuniya and Jaffna districts. Xinhua