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Sri Lanka Army

Defender of the Nation

Published on - 8/6/2005

One more Human Rights course gets under way

The Sri Lanka Army's sixteen-day long sixth Senior Non-Commissioned Officer (SNCO) Instructor Course on Human Rights (HR) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), organized in collaboration with the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and Institute of Human Rights commenced Wednesday (3) at Panagoda, Army Cantonment.

Forty Senior Non-Commissioned officers are to undergo sixth Instructor Course until 25 August 2005. Today's inaugural ceremony graced by Professor George Cooray, Head of Department, Faculty of History and International affairs, University of Colombo as Chief Guest was also attended by Major General W.U.B Edirisingha Adjutant General, representatives of ICRC Delegation and from the Institute of Human Rights and Brigadier Mohanthi Peiris, Director HR & HL and several Senior Officers of the Armed Forces.

To-date, the Army has produced 472 instructors (248 officers and 224 senior Non-Commissioned

Officers) and those qualified officers had in return trained many thousands of Other Ranks serving at ground level during the past five years.

The Sri Lanka Army, to its credit hitherto has been able to effectively cut down or completely decimate incidence of Human Rights violations by their members, even receiving commendations from many local and international agencies for that remarkable record of achievement.

No agency or any other organization operating particularly in the north and east of Sri Lanka has so far made any official complaint against the Army as regards any violation of Human Rights, said to be committed by Army soldiers.

No doubt awareness created by training programmes of this nature would enormously help the Army to further improve professional standards of both Officers and Soldiers in the Army.

Major General W.U. B Edirisingha, Adjutant General, Representatives of the ICRC Delegation and the Institute of Human Rights and also Brigadier Mohanthi Peiris, Director HR & HL addressed the participants. The inaugural session ended after the Army song was played.