Human Rights course for Ground Commanders

COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka Army that has implemented a number of special measures to prevent violations of human rights by the Army after introducing special training sessions on Human Rights (HR) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) for all ranks in the Army.

One more symposium on HR and IHL, meant for Ground Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force is scheduled to take place shortly in Colombo. The Army's Directorate of Humanitarian Law was established at the Army Headquarters in 1997 and was extended to cover IHL too later on in the year 2000.

The Directorate regularly conducts training sessions for Officers and Other Ranks of the Army and the tri-services inviting professionals in the field as lecturers both at home and foreign levels.

Such sessions, mainly sponsored by the ICRC and other Human Rights organizations have so far trained 310 Officers and 276 Senior Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) who are now dedicated for propagation of that knowledge to soldiers serving at ground levels.

This awareness has helped minimize HR violations among service personnel drastically despite the fact that they were involved in a brutal war with terrorists to safeguard the sovereignty of the motherland.

Inhuman terrorist methods and tactics that go against International Law of War such as use of civilians by the LTTE as human shields have worsened the status quo.

However, the programme that continued between 2000-2005 was to be continued uninterrupted on the instructions of Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, Commander of the Army who has shown his keen interest towards the sphere.