Sri Lankan Government, Rebels Agree to Truce

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —  The Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels agreed Saturday to an unconditional end to fighting that has raged for almost a week and left nearly 500 dead, government sources said.

But battles raged until the cease-fire took effect near dusk.

The agreement, effective at 6 p.m., was reached after seven hours of talks between Justice Minister Shahul Hameed, the government’s chief negotiator, and leaders of the dominant rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the sources said.

Hameed telephoned officials in Colombo with the news from the port town of Jaffna, 180 miles north of the capital, where the negotiations were held at a heavily guarded rebel office, the sources said.

He said he and rebel leaders planned to tour areas where fighting has raged to see what could be done to restore normalcy, the sources said.

The fighting erupted last Tuesday in Sri Lanka’s northern and eastern provinces, home to most of the nation’s 3 million Tamils.

The government and the Tigers had agreed to a cease-fire earlier in the week, but it failed and battles erupted in many areas.

Heavy fighting was reported Saturday around Trincomalee, 135 miles northeast of Colombo, and in the east coast’s Batticaloa district, where soldiers battled to regain control of several police stations captured by the rebels and to stop attacks on at least three military camps, the sources said.

Hundreds of soldiers, police, rebels and civilians were killed in last week’s fighting. The dead include about 175 police officers captured and later executed by rebels, police and military sources said.

Thousands of people have died in ethnic violence since 1983, when Tamil militants began waging a bloody campaign to establish the northern and eastern provinces as an independent homeland for the Tamils, who are predominantly Hindu.

Tamils are demanding a separate state because of years of alleged discrimination by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese, who control the Colombo government.