WELIKANDA (Sri Lanka) - THEY begin each day saluting the national flag of the country they had vowed to defeat or die trying. Gone are the cyanide capsules that, like all Tamil Tiger rebels, they had worn around their necks for use if captured by the Sri Lankan military.

In their place hang religious symbols - a substitution that perfectly reflects the image Sri Lanka wants the world to see: Its former enemies on the path to redemption and rehabilitation.

More than 300 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - including children forcibly recruited by the rebels - are undergoing rehabilitation in tightly-guarded, state-run camps.

Where once they were trained for guerrilla warfare in the jungles of northeast Sri Lanka, they now receive vocational training in carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrical wiring, sewing or cooking.

They are also learning computer skills, English and Sinhalese, the language spoken by Sri Lanka's ethnic majority. It's a disconcerting regime for some of the former rebels, especially the younger ones who were raised on the struggle for an independent Tamil homeland, Tamil Eelam.

The Welikanda centre, some 260km east of Colombo, throws up many contradictions. In the evenings, it takes on the atmosphere of a community centre, as the former rebels spend their time listening to hip-hop Tamil or Hindi music, drawing or playing cricket or football.

There are movie nights with DVDs provided by relatives or old Tamil films aired on television. But the external reality is of a compound guarded day and night by armed soldiers who decide who, if anyone, moves in or out.

'This is not a prisoner of war camp. It's more like a school,' said Major Jayalal Suraweera, who runs the centre.

'This is a process of rehabilitation and not punishment,' Mr Suraweera told AFP. 'Inmates can either return to their families or go abroad once their programme here ends.'

Welikanda is home to around 150 former rebels, and the centre is being expanded to accommodate another 200. More camps are expected to be built over the next few months with room for 3,000 fighters who surrendered during the final stages of the war. -- AFP