Sri Lankan rebel faction announces ceasefire

A breakaway Tamil Tiger faction said it has offered its rival mainstream rebel group a ceasefire ahead of the Tigers’ talks with the government, hoping to bring Sri Lanka permanent peace.

The government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE – the mainstream Tigers’ official name – agreed last week to meet for the first time in about four years to try saving a ceasefire, which is under severe pressure from violence that has killed at least 150 people since December.

“This unilateral ceasefire is declared to create a conducive environment for the Sri Lankan president (Mahinda Rajapakse) to continue with his negotiations to bring about a permanent” end to the civil war, the breakaway Peoples’ Liberation Front of Tamil Eelam said in a statement made available today.

The government-LTTE talks are set to be held in Switzerland in February. An exact date has not been confirmed.

However, rebel officials said today that the Tamil Tigers have threatened to pull out of peace talks.

The Peoples’ Liberation Front of Tamil Eelam broke from the mainstream LTTE in March 2004 with about 6,000 fighters.

A month later the LTTE had largely suppressed its rivals, but their leader is still believed to have a significant number of followers in the island country’s east.

The LTTE – whose main power base in the north – has accused Sri Lanka’s military of backing the breakaway faction – a charge the military denies.

The LTTE did not immediately respond to its rivals’ offer.

Instead, it accused unspecified “paramilitary personnel” – a term it often uses for the renegade faction – of kidnapping five ethnic Tamil relief workers.

Yesterday, “five Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation employees, travelling ... for a training programme were stopped and kidnapped by unidentified paramilitary personnel near (a) Sri Lankan Army’s checkpoint,” the rebels’ website said.

The LTTE started fighting in 1983 for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka’s northeast, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. The conflict killed about 65,000 people.

Norway brokered a 2002 ceasefire and helped co-ordinate six rounds of government-rebel peace talks, which broke down due to disagreements over the LTTE’s demands for extensive autonomy.

The Tamil Tiger rebels said they will pull out of the peace talks unless the government takes greater steps to protect Tamils against abductions.

Participation in the talks will depend on what steps the government takes to stop abductions of Tamil relief workers, top rebel official Seevaratnam Puleedevan said.

Yesterday, five Tamil employees were kidnapped, the rebels said. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

The rebels and the government agreed last week to resume peace talks in mid-February after violence left at least 150 people dead in December.