In Sri Lanka, peace talks ride on a highway

But the rebels acknowledge having turned down offers from both the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to help transport provisions by sea. They also opposed establishing a supply route from the Indian coast. As it stands, the government's food shipments to Jaffna are insufficient to meet the daily needs of its 600,000 residents.

"The food situation is very bad," says Mr. Puleedevan. "People have started to starve. That's why we think the A-9 should be opened."

President Mahinda Rajapakse said earlier this week that he would open the A-9 to allow one food convoy pass through. Rebels met the announcement with skepticism.

"We think it's a good step, but it's not going to address the urgent needs of the people," says Puleedevan. The LTTE, he says, has yet to receive confirmation from either the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the Nordic group overseeing the tattered cease-fire, or the International Committee for the Red Cross, which administers border crossings.

With the highway closed, Jaffna residents stranded in mainland Sri Lanka are now the responsibility of local governments near the rebel border. In the northwestern district of Mannar, 655 Jaffna residents wait in government welfare centers to return home this weekend.

"Among the 655, we're going to send 300 on Saturday for the Sunday ship," says Stanley de Nal, a government officer in Mannar. Mannar is busing Jaffna residents to the eastern port town of Trincomalee, where they will board a private passenger ship bound for the Jaffna peninsula.

Charles, who works with Ms. Stanley, sent the last batch of stranded residents in Vavuniya to Trincomalee on Tuesday. Before that, hundreds of Jaffna residents camped out in front of her office each morning. Some had been selling their jewelry and personal belongings to pay for food and board, says Charles.

"We requested the government to please send them from Vavuniya because we were having a lot of problems," she says. Her office was "unable to look after them, unable to feed them. We had no funds for any facilities," she says.

The highway closure kept Devanayakam Devanand, a father of two from Jaffna, from returning home for months. He is angry that civilians are being made to suffer. "It's a military confrontation, not a civilian confrontation," he says. "The A-9 is a civilian road, not a military road."

The ferry has also presented travelers with security challenges. One Sri Lankan passenger ferry was caught in the middle of a sea battle between the Navy and the Tamil Tigers several days ago.

The pro-Tiger Tamilnet website claims that the vessel was carrying 300 troops and Army munitions – a claim the government denies. It says the Tigers attacked to sway Sri Lankan popular opinion toward reopening the highway.

"They wanted to show that the sea lines are not safe, so open the A-9," says one official.

Page: 1 | 2