The Nigerian militant group whose oil-region attacks have spurred global crude prices higher announced a one-month ceasefire, offering newly inaugurated President Umaru Yar'Adua an opening to solve the crisis that has roiled Africa's oil giant.
"We will suspend attacks on oil installations for one month -- a period which we hope the government will take advantage of to ruminate on positive and realistic measures towards a just peace in the delta," said the spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) on Saturday.
The group did not offer to stop kidnapping foreign oil workers, but it released the six hostages it admitted to holding, saying the liberation of the four Italians, an American and a Croatian taken hostage on May 1 was an olive branch to the government.
The group launched its campaign of kidnappings and bombings in late 2005, seeking to force the federal government to give its impoverished region a greater share of oil funds.
In his inaugural speech on Tuesday, Yar'Adua called the conflict an urgent matter and asked for a permanent ceasefire to allow for mediation toward a long-term peace.
However, the announcement isn't likely to immediately calm the vast southern region where numerous criminal gangs and unallied militant groups ply the swamps and creeks in gunboats. The violence continued on Saturday, with gunmen seizing four more foreign hostages, and the main militant group insisted it wasn't ending its struggle with the ceasefire.
After the one-month grace period, "we will resume attacks on installations and oil workers in the delta with greater purpose," the MEND spokesman wrote in an e-mail to reporters.
Officials in Yar'Adua's nascent administration were not available for comment.
While the southern Niger Delta region has long been roiled by violence and militant activity, the MEND militants have brought the violence to a new level.
Armed with heavy weaponry and schooled in sophisticated military and propaganda tactics, the militants have blown up oil installations and attacked boats carrying oil workers.
Their 18 months of attacks have cut nearly one-third of Nigeria's usual 3 million barrel-per-day production, helping send prices toward all-time highs on international markets.
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo branded the militants criminals and made no mention of the region in his farewell speech to the nation last week after eight years in power. Yar'Adua made clear upon taking over that he believed the crisis in the Niger Delta was one of his stiffest challenges.
More than 200 foreigners have been seized since MEND launched its campaign. Criminal gangs with no obvious political aims have also taken up the practice this year.
Kidnappings continued in the region over the weekend, with gunmen wearing security force garb abducting four foreign oil workers -- a Briton, a Pakistani, a Dutch national and a French citizen -- from their compound in the southern region's main city, police said.
The gunmen wore uniforms that resembled those of one of Nigeria's two police forces, and they were able to enter the compound and leave again without firing a shot, said Rivers State Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu, speaking by telephone.
He noted that both uniforms -- black for regular officers and green for elite mobile police known by the abbreviation Mopol -- are simple in appearance and easily duplicated. The gunmen could not be presumed to be security forces, he said.
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