The Sri Lankan government announced that it would be hiring retired military personnel for “nation-building purposes,” in a media briefing on Friday.
Speaking to reporters, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Defence and Secretary to the Ministry of Defence said the project was “initiated under a visionary concept of the President Maithripala Sirisena” and is to be officially inaugurated in the next week.
50 former soldiers would be hired to “offer their expertise towards the Nation-Building process… with the experience gained through defeating terrorism,” said the Ministry of Defence website.
The minister went onto dismiss allegations that the government was “abandoning and hunting war heroes”. “The President and Prime Minister have always instructed to support war heroes and assure their welfare,” he added.