866 rehabilitated ex-LTTE cadres released in Sri Lanka

The government today released some 866 rehabilitated former LTTE cadres in Sri Lanka's northern Vavuniya town, amid plans to free all reformed Tamil Tiger activists by end of this year.

"We are making arrangements to release all rehabilitated LTTE members by December," Chandrasiri Gajadeera, the minister for prison reform said today in Vavuniya.

Some 866 rehabilitated former members of the Tamil Tigers were released on the second day of a ceremony in Vavuniya in a bid to boost the reconciliation process after the end of the ethnic conflict in May 2009.

Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, the commissioner general of rehabilitation, said that over 6,500 of the former LTTE have now been rehabilitated and released. Around 3,500 are currently in detention.

The former rebels are given vocational and language training during rehabilitation. The released so far are those married with children.

The LTTE waged a bloody three-decade civil war for a separate state for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, alleging discrimination against the minority community at the hands of the majority Sinhalas.

But the Lankan military crushed the rebels and ended the ethnic conflict that killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.