Posted on 09/03/2005 4:06:05 AM PDT by knighthawk
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's Maoist rebels announced a three-month cease-fire from Saturday, their chief said in a statement, in a move to win support of political parties after King Gyanendra seized power in February.
"During this period, our People's Liberation Army (PLA) will be in defensive positions," Prachanda said in a statement made available to Reuters.
"The PLA will not launch any offensive from its side."
"We believe our move will encourage all forces, within and outside Nepal, who want peace through a forward-moving political solution," the elusive Maoist chief said.
The Nepali army said it had heard about the rebel's truce but did not want to comment.
Nepal's mainstream political parties said in July they would hold talks with the rebels to discuss a plan to hold joint protests against Gyanendra's power grab, provided the Maoists stopped violence.
More than 12,500 people have been killed in the nine-year-old Maoist revolt aimed at toppling the world's only Hindu monarchy.
Gyanendra seized power by sacking the multi-party government and curbing civil rights. He justified his actions saying it was a vital step towards crushing the rebels.
Nepal's seven-party political alliance plans to hold pro-democracy protests later on Saturday.
Ping
Don't trust a word any maoist or islamist speaks. These defensive positions are nothing but ploys to gain time for recovery, reinforcement and consolidation.
Too often have I seen democratic governements being fooled by false marxist (and also islamist) pro ises of 'truce', ceasefires' and 'peace class'. Its all HUDNA - temporary truces for tactical reasons. The war meanwhile goes on.
The latest such incident to happen was in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh - where maoist insurgents called 'Naxalites' agreed to a'truce', and after 5 months of suspended police operations against them, in which they recovered and replenished reserves, they simply walked out of the 'talks'!
That's right. The term "truce" for Marxists/Islamists means they want to regroup and reload while their enemy lets his guard down.
Sounds a bit like Spain in the 1930's.
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