Tamil Leader’s Reply to Peace Plan Due Today

The leader of the Tamil Tigers, the main fighting group in the Tamil separatist campaign against the government of Sri Lanka, said Monday that he will respond to a joint India-Sri Lanka peace plan for the four-year-old conflict today in Jaffna, the Tamil stronghold on the northern tip of this island nation.

Tamil sources in Colombo said that Velupillai Prabhakaran has agreed to turn in at least some of his group’s weapons. Under an agreement signed last week by India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Junius R. Jayewardene, the deadline for the surrender of weapons by the militants expired Monday afternoon.

However, commanders of the 3,000 Indian troops brought into Jaffna Peninsula after the agreement was signed have said they would not enforce the deadline as long as negotiations with the Tiger leader continued.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the organization that Prabhakaran heads, was not a party to the agreement. Rebel commanders in the Jaffna Peninsula, theater for the heaviest fighting in a conflict that has claimed more than 5,000 lives, refuse to disarm until Prabhakaran, 33, gives the order.

Prabhakaran was flown to the Jaffna Peninsula on Sunday on an Indian air force jet after 10 days of talks with Gandhi and other Indian leaders in New Delhi. India has an interest in the conflict because 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are in India’s Tamil Nadu state, home for 55 million Indian Tamils who share linguistic and cultural traditions with the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Prabhakaran met Monday with his commanders, some of whom were flown into the Jaffna meeting place on Indian air force and navy helicopters. Tamil sources in Colombo said the Tiger leader informed the commanders about his decision to participate in the India-Sri Lanka peace agreement, which carves out a majority Tamil province in the north and northeast areas of the island.

“By and large, we expect the Tigers to hold ranks because of the inevitability of the agreement,” said one moderate Tamil leader in Colombo.

Although some senior Sri Lankan government officials have expressed willingness to give Prabhakaran a political role in the new province, no specific job has been established, the source said. However, the Tigers, as well as several other Tamil militant groups, are expected to serve as part of an advisory council that will report to President Jayewardene.

The brigade of 3,000 Indian troops on the island are assigned to monitor a cease-fire that went into effect last Friday and to supervise the surrender of rebel weapons. Tiger leaders have reportedly asked that more Indian troops be deployed in the northeastern areas of the island to protect Tamil residents there.

So far, the Sri Lanka government has not agreed. On Monday, however, Indian ships unloaded heavy mine-detection equipment and armored personnel carriers in the northeast port of Trincomalee, ostensibly because the Jaffa Peninsula does not have a port with deep enough water for the big ships.