Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency

SRI LANKA’S president has declared a state of emergency, deepening the country’s political crisis as her political rival was set to meet with US President George W Bush in Washington.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga further asserted her power across this troubled island nation, but officials insisted she wouldn't restart a bloody 20-year civil war and would honour a shaky cease-fire with Tamil Tiger rebels.

The crisis began on Tuesday when Ms Kumaratunga who accuses Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of being soft on the rebels fired three top ministers, suspended Parliament and deployed troops around the capital.

The emergency order was certain to infuriate the Tiger rebels, who have fought a two-decade war for independence for the country's Tamil people, but have held to a ceasefire with the government for more than 18 months.

The state of emergency was to let the government "take stock of the security situation", senior presidential aide Eric Fernando said.

It allows the military to enter homes without search warrants, arrest people without reason and hold them for lengthy periods.

It also gives the president power to enact laws and extraordinary control over the media, including tight censorship. Mr Wickremesinghe was to meet with Mr Bush to secure US support for his drive to bring a lasting peace in the civil war, which has left 65,000 people dead since 1983.

The Tamil Tiger rebels, officially called the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, or LTT, signed a cease-fire in 2002, halting the fighting. But they have since dropped out of peace talks and demanded sweeping administrative powers in the Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka's northeast as a condition for returning to the peace process.

Lakshman Kadirgama, a top aide to Ms Kumaratunga, said the president has no plans to resume fighting the Tigers.

A web site that reports on Tamil affairs said Ms Kumaratunga's moves have thrown the status of the ceasefire into uncertainty. "Prospects for ending the conflict (have) dimmed," said TamilNet.

People lined up outside stores and gas stations in Jaffna, the main city in Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated north, to buy food, fuel and other supplies. Many parents didn't send their children to school, fearing violence could break out or a curfew could be put in place.

Mr Wickremesinghe holds a slim majority in the parliament. His administration is mulling a snap election in hopes of bolstering its mandate, the state-run Daily News reported.

Ms Kumaratunga sacked the ministers of defence, interior and information, who have been instrumental in the government's peace efforts, and took control of those ministries. She said the steps were needed to check a deteriorating security situation.

Ms Kumaratunga is commander of the armed forces and has broad executive powers.