India to Observe 2-Day Truce in Fight Against Sri Lanka Rebels

The Indian government Friday announced a 48-hour cease-fire in fighting with Sri Lankan Tamil rebels, acting a day after the militant separatists freed 18 Indian soldiers and urged a break in hostilities.

K. Natwar Singh, minister of state for external affairs, told Parliament that beginning at 7 a.m. today, the Indian peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka “will not fire on its own initiative.”

In his announcement, Singh did not mention the freeing of 18 captured Indian soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the largest rebel militia.

But in response to a question, he called Thursday’s release a positive development and “a vindication of the policy followed by the government of firmness coupled with a willingness to keep the door open for negotiations.”

However, Singh said India would not give up its pledge to disarm the rebels, who for four years have fought for a separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka, where they are an ethnic minority.

“It is hoped that the . . . (guerrillas) will use this opportunity to hand over their arms and unequivocally support the Indian-Sri Lankan agreement,” he said.

There was no official rebel reaction to the cease-fire announcement. But a Tiger leader in the southern Indian city of Madras, where the group is based in exile, welcomed it.

However, he repeated the rebel group’s position that it will not suspend hostilities until Indian forces withdraw to positions they occupied before launching an offensive to disarm the Liberation Tigers.

In the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, a senior official said the government was “taken by surprise” by New Delhi’s announcement.

Meanwhile, a Sri Lankan military court on Friday sentenced a Sri Lankan sailor to six years in prison for hitting Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with his rifle butt during an honor guard inspection July 30. The attack on Gandhi came a day after the Indian leader and Sri Lankan President Junius R. Jayewardene signed an accord giving India a peacekeeping role in Sri Lanka.

The sailor, 22-year-old Vijayamuni Vijitha Rohana, was ordered “disgracefully dismissed” from the navy but was cleared of a charge of trying to murder the Indian leader.