Red Cross Leaving Lebanon; Threats Cited

The International Committee of the Red Cross said today that it is suspending its operations in Lebanon after receiving new threats against the lives of its staffers.

The decision came four days after the release of Peter Winkler, the chief Red Cross delegate in south Lebanon who was held hostage for a month.

A brief news release said the committee made its decision after hearing Monday of “serious threats against its delegates on mission in Lebanon, placing their lives in acute danger.” It said the relief operations would be resumed as soon as the threats are “clearly and unequivocally withdrawn.”

The Red Cross now has a staff of 17 in Lebanon. Ten others were withdrawn after Winkler was kidnaped Nov. 16.

A Red Cross spokesman, Carlos Bauverd, declined to elaborate on the nature of the threats or say what groups were believed behind them. He also would not say how the committee learned of the threats.

There was no word on when the staffers would be pulled out of Lebanon.

Winkler was taken while working at a refugee camp in the southern port of Sidon. Swiss Foreign Minister Rene Felber said that in indirect contacts, the kidnapers identified themselves as members of a dissident Palestinian group called Organization of Socialist Revolution.

Felber said the kidnapers were demanding a lenient sentence for a Lebanese Shia Muslim hijacker, Hussein Hariri, who is to go on trial before the Swiss Supreme Court on Feb. 20.

Hariri hijacked an Air Afrique plane July 14, 1987, and killed a French passenger before he was subdued during a stop at Geneva airport.

Fifteen other kidnaped foreigners, including nine Americans, are being held in Lebanon.