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Red Cross standoff triggrs hungr fears

COLOMBO: Thousands of people in Sri Lanka's beleaguered north face hunger due to a standoff between the Red Cross and the government ahead of a widely expected army offensive against the Tamil rebel stronghold, officials said on Sunday.

A rebel radio broadcast by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said a U.N. observer was discussing the food emergency with guerrilla leaders on the stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula in the north.

Three-hundred-thousand people are threatened by the month-old food crisis, brought on by the suspension of food shipments after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) refused to escort government vessels because of safety fears.

An official quoted the government agent in Jaffna as saying: "There is no more food in government stores."

Jaffna government agent K. Ponnampalam last week appealed directly to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to intervene in the dispute.

Diplomats said government forces had apparently prepared an elaborate plan for a major assault on Jaffna, headquarters of Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, before the next rainy season, due in less than two months.

They were, however, divided in seeing a link between the suspension of food supplies to Jaffna and the government's war strategy.

"If people starve, more and more of them will join the LTTE war effort," a diplomat told Reuters. "It doesn't make sense for the government to deliberately cut food supplies to Jaffna."

Others said the suspension of food shipments to the northern region had enabled Colombo to pressure the Tigers to open two strategic land routes.

"If the LTTE is interested in ensuring that the people they are seeking to 'liberate' are adequately fed ... why do they keep the land route through Elephant Pass and Pooneryn blocked?" said the pro-government Daily News on Saturday.

Senior Tiger commanders, bracing for the government offensive, have fanned out across the peninsula, setting up roadblocks and ringing their positions with mines, diplomats said.

"They don't appear to be planning to open any road for the troops," a diplomat said.

The ICRC, which had been protecting six ships transporting a monthly average of 10,000 tonnes of supplies provided by the government for Jaffna civilians, says it was forced to suspend operations after its own ship hit a mine.

Regular supplies of essential food and medicines have dried up since the end of July while the ICRC clarified security guarantees for ICRC-protected ships from the Tigers and government forces.

It says it is prepared to escort ships to the Tiger-controlled Point Pedro on the Jaffna Peninsula, but not to the government-controlled port of Kankesanturai where the armed forces want it to unload supplies.-Reuter