Lithuania to drop the draft

VILINIUS - The Lithuanian Defense Minister has signed a decree endingmandatory military service in the country and beginning the transition to aprofessional army. The decree, which was approved on Monday, went into effectimmediately.

"By confirming the marginal national defense figures, theSeimas [Lithuanian parliament] passed a political decision to switch over toforming a professional, volunteer-based army," Defense Minister Juozas Olekassaid in a ministry press release.

"This year we have enlisted almost the provisioned number ofyoung officers, with very successful enlistment for professional militaryservice, therefore a decision was made to no longer implement conscription," hesaid.

The decree also, however, required conscripts that havealready been enlisted to stay at their post until at least July 1, 2009.

Though Lithuanians will no longer be subject to the draft,the constitutional clause stating that all citizens must be willing to "defendone's homeland" is still in place.

"The Constitutional obligation to defend one's homelandremains in place, and we invite all youths to meet this obligation by enlistingin the national defense volunteer forces and coming to serve in theprofessional army," the defense minister said.

Opposition parties say that the country will not be able toproperly defend itself with a professional army and claim that the move was aploy for the ruling party to gain popularity ahead of the upcoming elections.

"We can only regret that the Social Democrat government ismaking especially important and controversial decisions on national defenseissues at the time of an election campaign," Parliamentary National Securityand Defense Committee and opposition MP Rasa Jukneviciene was quoted by theBaltic News Service as saying.

"[A] professional army alone cannot warrant wide territorialdefense and the nation's readiness to counter not only potential militaryaggression, but also other types of attacks against Lithuania,"she said.