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Sri
Lanka's Tamil Tigers begin 12-hour cease-fire |
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May 28, 2000 NEW
DELHI, MAY 27 (AP) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels began a 12-hour
cease-fire Saturday to allow civilians trapped in battle zones in the
northern Jaffna peninsula to escape to safety, sources close to the rebels said. But the Defense Ministry in the capital, Colombo, said it was unaware that fighting had been halted. "We have no intimation from anyone. No one has told us anything," military spokesman Brig. Palitha Fernando told The Associated Press. "We feel this is either a publicity gimmick or the terrorists are trying to buy time so that they can regroup," said Fernando, who was reached by telephone. In a statement issued Friday night from their London office, the rebels said they would observe the cease-fire Saturday from 10 a.m. (0400 GMT). Sources
close to the rebels in Sri Lanka said that the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam began the cease-fire at that time. The sources refused to
be identified because the rebel group is banned in Sri Lanka and anyone keeping contact with them can be arrested and tried under a national security ordinance now in force is the small island, off India's southern coast. "The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will observe a temporary cessation of hostilities ... to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the battle zones ... of the Jaffna peninsula to safe areas," the rebel statement said. "The LTTE has also approached the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations in the peninsula to help to evacuate civilians to safe areas," the statement said. Harsha Gunawardene, spokesman of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sri Lanka, declined to either confirm or deny whether the organization had been contacted by the rebels. Meanwhile,
an officer with the antiterrorist Special Task Force was
killed and four others were wounded Saturday in a Claymore mine blast in
Vavuniya, the last government-held town before the war theater, civilian witnesses and a Vavuniya police officer told The Associated Press. The
land mine exploded as a Land Rover jeep carrying the men ran over
it. |