Military training for university entrants in Sri Lanka

Colombo: Sri Lanka Monday began compulsory military-led training for thousands of university entrants, despite protests by opposition-backed student unions that called it the government's latest move to militarise the country.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's government has ordered 22,000 university entrants to attend what it calls "leadership and positive-thinking training" for three weeks at 28 military camps island-wide. The first 12,000 began Monday.

Sri Lanka's traditionally influential student unions have long been bellwethers of political unrest. They were key parts of the deadly 1971 and 1988-89 insurrections led by the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), or People's Freedom Party.

The largest student union, the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF), rejected the training as a government method of coercing political support. The IUSF has long been seen as the student wing of the JVP, which is now in opposition.