Sri Lanka Guerrilla Chief Accepts Peace Plan : Tamil Tigers to Avoid Showdown With Indian Troops, Surrender Weapons

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka —  There was not much roar left in the Tamil Tigers on Tuesday as their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, commander of the main fighting group in the five-year Tamil separatist campaign against the Sri Lankan military, announced that his men will surrender their weapons to the Indian army.

Before more than 100,000 followers gathered on the grounds of a Hindu temple here, Prabhakaran, 33, reading softly from the text of a handwritten speech, said his guerrilla crusade for a separate homeland--Eelam--for Sri Lanka’s 2 million Tamils had been blocked by the arrival of Indian troops here in the Tamil stronghold on the northern tip of Sri Lanka.

“We are going to hand over our weapons to the Indians,” Prabhakaran announced, looking sad and defeated as the huge crowd trilled its approval.

“We have no choice but to toe the line of the Indian government,” he added. “If we don’t, there will be an armed confrontation with the Indian army. We don’t want that. India is a powerful country and we are unable to do anything to stop it.”

Watching from VIP chairs in the front rows of the massive crowd, senior Indian military officers smiled when the announcement was translated to them by Tamil interpreters.

A brigade of Indian soldiers came to Sri Lanka last week at the invitation of Sri Lanka President Junius R. Jayewardene after he and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed an agreement of cooperation to end the bloody ethnic war, in which more than 5,000 people have died.

Now it is the Indian army, not the guerrilla units of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are the police forces and heroes of the Jaffna Peninsula. The loudest applause during Prabhakaran’s speech came when he announced that the Indian army will now be in charge of Tamil security.

“Rajiv Gandhi has given us assurances,” Prabhakaran said. “On the basis of those assurances, we have decided to hand over our arms. It does not mean we have given up our dream for Eelam. We are only shifting the responsibility of protecting the people to the Indian army.”

Prabhakaran did not say when the surrender of weapons, estimated by military experts at more than 10,000 pieces ranging from homemade pistols to anti-aircraft guns, will take place.

However, the Sri Lankan military commander in chief, Gen. Cyril Ranatunga, said in an interview Tuesday that the arms surrender will begin some time this afternoon.

A few Tamil Tigers in the crowd, including one man with a .357-magnum pistol strapped to his hip, confided privately that they intended to keep at least some of their weapons in reserve.

However, they all agreed that the time of fighting has come to at least a temporary halt.

“We have lost so many men,” said one Tiger named Raheem. “So many civilians have been killed. The war is over for now, the struggle will continue on a political level.”

Indeed, Prabhakaran, who has been a guerrilla fighter in the separatist cause since he was a teen-ager, said his Liberation Tigers organization may participate in elections for a new majority Tamil province to be created under the agreement signed by Gandhi and Jayewardene. Contrary to rumor, however, he said he will not seek political office himself.

After Prabhakaran concluded his short speech, a phalanx of Tamil Tiger guerrillas formed around him. The young Tamils, most in their late teens and armed with AK-47 and M-16 rifles, escorted the stocky leader to a waiting black van.

Meanwhile, the massive crowd surged forward. Ignoring the Tigers, whose banners and photographs adorn the walls of Jaffna, the crowd moved toward the Indian soldiers, reaching out to touch their olive green uniforms and grasp their hands.

By this time, most of the young Tigers had disappeared.

For the moment it appeared that the transfer of responsibility from the guerrillas to the Indian army had already taken place.

“Jai Hind! Jai Hind!” the Tamils on bicycles and walking along the road shouted in the Indian Hindi language as an Indian army convoy of trucks moved down the narrow Jaffna streets.

“Long live India!”