This story offends me both as an individual, but all the more so as a soldier myself.  When a person committs themselves to risking life and limb for their nation, or in this case a foreign nation they are owed all that they are promised and not one bit less.  Even the French see to it that members of the Foreign Legion who serve  twenty or more years are well taken care of after the leave the Legion.  Certainly the British can see to it that the Gurkahs are treated in a manner equal to every other British soldier.

From the Times of London: Gurkhas will be sacked early to reduce their pension rights.

     THE Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing legal action over plans to cut the pensions of Gurkhas by sacking them three years before they are due to leave the army. 

     The move, which means the MoD will avoid having to pay an ordinary Gurkha soldier more than £200,000, is to be challenged in the courts by the British Armed Forces Federation (BAFF).

     The policy was introduced by civil servants after they were forced to increase the Gurkhas’ pay and pensions to bring them into line with the rest of the army. An official briefing document on the new pension scheme shows that 80%-85% of Gurkhas will be discharged early, so missing the better payments.

     What is worse is that this has been tried before with regular members of the British Army and caused a stink back in 2002.  The fact that this policy is being revived is bad enough, but the fact that it is limited to the Gurkahs certainly has at least some hint of racism to it.

     But its deliberate intent to cut pension payments was exposed in 2002 after a series of cases in which highly experienced soldiers with extremely good reports were thrown out at a time when the army was desperately short of such men.

     Ministers ordered civil servants to stop using the scheme to discharge good soldiers and it has not been used since. It has been revived specifically to control the numbers of Gurkha soldiers.

Hat tip to the Huntsman for twigging me to this bit of shameful news.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 12:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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