By IANS,
Colombo: The Sri Lankan government said Saturday it will set up community villages to rehabilitate former Tamil Tiger rebels.
Over 11,000 former cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are now sheltered in 18 state-run rehabilitation centers. The majority of them surrendered to the military during the last stages of the battle in May last year and the rest were arrested.
The newly appointed commissioner general of rehabilitation, Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe, told reporters that the proposal to establish community villages is in the process of administrative cleareance before being sent for final approval.
“Initially we want to shelter 200 families of those under rehabilitation. We have already selected the location with 200 houses,” Ranasinghe said, adding that there are over 3,000 married members under rehabilitation.
“When those under rehabilitation are living with their families it is easy to rehabilitate them. This is a novel concept that we are going to try out,” Xinhua quoted Ranasinghe as saying.
He said the ex-LTTE cadres are given vocational training in areas like house wiring and carpentry.