After a lengthy legal process and postponement due to heavy rains, the Jaffna court recently set the date for exhumation after allegation of the mass grave were made by a soldier last year.

Tamil political parties said the order was long overdue but expressed doubts whether anything would be found at the site after the delay. Jaffna residents have charged that the site seemed tampered with since the allegation was first made.

Sri Lanka intends to make full use of the occasion to reassert its human rights credentials and besides NGOs and independent experts, has also extended an invitation to all interested journalists from the national and foreign press to witness the event. A statementfrom the foreign ministry said that this was being done in the interests of transparency.

Family members of around 600 people who disappeared between July and November 1996 -- the period when the alleged mass grave came into existence have also requested the court to be permitted to witness the exhumation. That request is being considered.

The allegation of the mass graves' existence was first made in July 1998. Lance corporal Somaratne Rajapakse, convicted of the rape and murder of a teenaged Tamil girl in 1996, told the sentencing judge that nearly 300 Tamils who disappeared in 1996 were buried at Chemmani, on the outskirts of Jaffna town. He alleged the civilians had been killed by soldiers on orders from senior army officers.

The foreign ministry defended the six-month delay in getting the court's permission for the exhumation saying it was caused by the closure of the Jaffna courts in the wake of death threats to magistrates from the LTTE. The inundation of the site due to heavy rains in Januaryforced the magistrate to put off exhumation by another two months.

News of the exhumation order came on the heels of a judgement on Wednesday convicting six army officers and a school principal in Embilipitiya, central Sri Lanka, for the murder, conspiracy and abduction of 25 school children between 1989-1990, during the height of an armed insurrection by the Janatha Vimukthi Perumena (JVP). All seven were handed 10 years rigorous imprisonment each.

Constitutional Affairs and Justice minister G L Peiris said the judgement was one that all Sri Lankans could be proud of. ``It has shown the world that the judicial system of Sri Lanka is potent to deal with this problem and that there are no immunities or privileges enjoyed by anyone, either in the army or police, in the application of the criminal laws of this country,'' he said at a briefing on Thursday.