THE number of young men seeking deferment or exemption from military service has grown at an almost exponential rate during the last decade, according to press reports.
In the year 2000 the number of conscripts declared unfit for service due to psychological problems stood at 43, rising to 566 in 2006 and reaching 995 in 2008.
Meanwhile, the number of conscripts granted a deferment on the same grounds was 436 in the year 2000, jumping to 1163 in 2006 and reaching 1293 in 2008.
The above figures, published by Simerini on Sunday, seemed to confirm other estimates that a whopping 20 per cent of young males are avoiding the draft in one way or another.
The paper also quoted a source in the military, outraged that youths took advantage of these deferments to leave the country, often illegally via the north, and travel abroad for studies.
The indignant source remarked: “These mamma’s boys, these sordid scions of degenerate families, and often with the conscious encouragement and urging of their parents, are breaking the law, they are draft dodgers…this is a sorry state of affairs, it is a direct undermining of our occupied country and of the National Guard.”
The source added: “These sons of a gun, whose parents are equally despicable, will try to come back to Cyprus after five or six years and somehow manage to avoid prosecution. Not only that, but they will apply for positions in the public sector and will expect to govern a country on which they went AWOL.”
Meanwhile Takis Evdokas, a well-established psychiatrist, has said the issuing of certificates affirming that a person is psychologically unfit for military service has turned into a cash cow.
He said that in private, psychiatrists admitted to charging up to €1700 per certificate.
“If we suppose that a psychiatrist issues 100 such certificates a year, then we are talking about an income of €170,000,” noted Evdokas.
The system works like this: A young man who gets a six-month deferment on psychological grounds can try to secure a second postponement. If he is successful for a second, and then a third time, then an exemption is granted.
Technically, the certificates signed by private doctors are not carte blanche: at the end of the day, that call is made by army psychiatrists assigned to boot camps who evaluate the papers and the applicant.
“But when someone comes to you and threatens to commit suicide if he cannot get out of the army, then what do you think the army psychiatrist or commander is going to do? What if there is even a one per cent chance that the youth might carry out the threat? No one wants that kind of responsibility,” Evdokas told the Mail.
He said the situation was unfair to many youths with real pathological problems who are honest and are denied a deferment. Meanwhile, folks who play the psychological problem card manage to get off the hook.
Evdokas is proposing stricter vetting procedures to weed out fakers. For starters, psychological evaluations should be carried out not by one, but two, private doctors, in the presence of an army psychiatrist. Secondly, persons declared as “psychologically imbalanced” should not be eligible for employment in the civil service.
According to Evdokas, an individual suffering from a “pro-psychotic condition” (such as schizophrenia) or a personality disorder (neurosis doesn’t count) is not fit to serve in the public service.
Thirdly, persons declared to be psychologically imbalanced should not be allowed to hold a driving licence.
Lastly, and controversially, Evdokas says that private psychiatrists who issue certificates to conscripts should be named.
“Personally, I don’t mind if this happens…hardly any youngster comes to me for this certificate anyway,” the doctor commented.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an officer at the Defence Ministry’s Recruitment Division yesterday told the Mail that reports of mass applications for deferments for the current enlistment were “grossly exaggerated.”
Enlistment for the this year’s induction into the National Guard ends today.
