COLOMBO, May 1: A Tamil Tiger rebel boat blew up off Sri Lanka’s eastern coast on Wednesday in the first confrontation with government forces since the two sides signed a Norwegian-brokered truce in February.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe played down fears that the truce was in peril as his most implacable critics turned their May Day march into a protest against a peace bid that has brought the country to the threshold of peace talks.

The military said neither side had opened fire when two Tamil Tiger boats stumbled across a navy patrol off the coast of Batticaloa.

“The explosion occurred the moment we put them under surveillance and moved in,” military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne said.

“It looks like they blew themselves up, but why is not immediately clear,” said Karunaratne.

Karunaratne could give no estimate of how many rebels died in the blast — the first known deaths in combat since another naval clash on Feb 23, a day before the truce was signed to pave the way for peace talks.

Wickremesinghe said the truce was still intact and repeated his plea for patience with the peaks and troughs of the peace process.

“Such minor incidents are to be expected on the tough road to peace,” he told a May Day rally hours after the clash.

“Even though the road may be difficult, people hope for peace so we must stay the course and fulfil those hopes.”

Wickremesinghe swept to power in December on a peace platform and plunged his government into the peace bid — billed as Sri Lanka’s best chance to end a conflict that has killed 64,000 people.

His pleas have had little impact on a radical Marxist party which flooded the capital Colombo with red-shirted radicals denouncing the peace bid as a betrayal of the Sinhalese majority.

“This peace process is nothing but an imperialist plot to divide the country,” Marxist spokesman Wimal Weerawansa told a rain-drenched rally around a huge hammer and sickle.

The Marxists have spearheaded an increasingly shrill campaign against the peace process as the country prepares for its first peace talks in seven years, expected to begin in Thailand next month.

The truce allowed the rebels to make a feisty May Day debut with a rally in the northern town of Vavuniya.

Tens of thousands of Tamils marched in support of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, waving the rebel pictures of guerrilla chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, public enemy number one to the Marxists and most Sinhalese.

Speakers at rally made no mention of the clash which ratcheted up tensions in the seas off the northeastern war zone where the navy had already reported several narrow brushes with the Sea Tigers, the rebels’ naval wing.—Reuters