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Lanka to get Indian humanitarian help soon

George Iype in Kochi

India's humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered Sri Lankan forces in the strife-torn Jaffna peninsula might begin immediately as the government has rushed plane-loads of medicines and other emergency relief items to the southern air force and naval commands at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi respectively.

An Indian Air Force official has disclosed that the southern commands of the air force and the navy have already put in place a hotline facility with the Indian high commissioner's office in Colombo indicating the urgency and immediacy of the operations.

The air command in Thiruvananthapuram has also reportedly established quick communication links with the Sri Lankan army headquarters at Colombo and also with the Indian Army headquarters in New Delhi.

"The emergency humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka could begin any time now. We are all prepared for the task and waiting for the orders from New Delhi," the official told rediff.com.

He said "adequate medicines and other relief materials like food and clothes" have arrived from Delhi and other stations in the country to rush them to Jaffna where some 35,000 Sri Lankan forces are trapped by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam following the fall of the strategic Elephant Pass.

Three IL-76 planes of the Indian Air Force flew in from Bhoj on Friday and unloaded medicines, food and cloth materials at the Thiruvananthapuram air headquarters.

Officials said while a number of AN 32 planes and helicopters have arrived at the southern air strip, Indian Navy vessels have been put on high alert for the Jaffna operation from the southern command.

Ever since Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Laxman Kadirgamar met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and appraised him of the vulnerable situation that the Sri Lankan forces are under in Jaffna, the southern air force and naval commands have been put on a high alert for "a possible Jaffna operation".

India has ruled out sending or selling arms to Sri Lanka, especially because of pressure from key allies like the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham government in Tamil Nadu. But Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi met Vajpayee on Friday and gave a carte blanche to the government to deal with the situation in Sri Lanka.

While Opposition parties in the country and political groups in Tamil Nadu are insisting that India should not get involved in Jaffna to solve the crisis in Sri Lanka, defence experts concede that sending humanitarian assistance to Jaffna amounts to the indirect evacuation of the trapped Sri Lankan forces.

Defence officials said the government is waiting for a formal request from the Sri Lankan government to launch what they call "the humanitarian operations".

Defence Minister George Fernandes who had a long closed-door meeting with the defence top brass including the chiefs of the three armed forces at Chandimandir near Chandigarh on Friday is said to have discussed at length the mode of operation that India could launch for the Sri Lankan forces in Jaffna.

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