Sam Rainsy, Cambodia's sole opposition leader and a vocal critic of Prime Minister Hun Sen, said he would end a hunger strike Friday night, three days after he began it as a protest against alleged official corruption in flood aid distribution.
Rainsy said he would return to his home from a pagoda in the centre of the capital, Phnom Penh, where he retreated after police forced him to dismantle a protest camp outside parliament.
"I will leave the pagoda at 7:00 pm (1200 GMT) and end my hunger strike after exactly three days and three nights," he told AFP by telephone.
"There have been no more reports of farmers and poor villagers pouring into the city demanding food aid. I think I have heightened the awareness of the problem (of corruption) and my protest has been useful."
He initially said he would continue to fast until all evidence of corruption in aid distribution was eradicated, but later scaled down his demand to the feeding of about 3,500 villagers who had come to town looking for food.
Those people were all fed by municipal authorities by early Friday, he said.
In response to questions about his health he said: "I feel OK ... I think tonight I will have some soup."
Rainsy -- who has hit out at the government and local officials repeatedly in recent weeks saying they were filtering off donated food and aid -- pitched a tent outside parliament Tuesday night and vowed to fast until he was given concrete evidence that measures were being taken to weed out corruption.
Rainsy, whose party holds 15 seats in the 122 seat legislature, left the site outside parliament when police cordoned it off and brought in more than 100 unarmed reinforcements and six trucks along with a water cannon.
Last week he led a protest of some 2,000 flood victims in an angry march on the offices of the United Nations and Red Cross, demanding food and accusing the government of corruption.
The government has repeatedly warned Rainsy not to "politicize" the issue of flood relief, and Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday brushed off the hunger strike as a publicity stunt.
The World Food Program is currently feeding more than 500,000 Cambodians who have lost property and crops due to the worst floods in a generation to sweep down the Mekong River basin, badly affecting Cambodia and Vietnam.
More than 300 people have been killed by flood waters and more than three million people have been affected -- PHNOM PENH (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
