COLOMBO TO DEFEND WATERS, INDIA READIES FLOTILLA
Sri Lanka today ordered its armed forces
to defend the island's territorial waters as India prepared to
send a flotilla with relief supplies that Colombo says it does
not want for the Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula.
    The sudden crisis between Sri Lanka and its giant neighbour
deepened as Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa told
parliament: "We have our territorial limits and nobody can be
allowed to trespass there ...
    "President (Junius) Jayewardene has ordered the army, navy
and air force to protect the island and its territorial waters,"
Premadasa said to a round of applause from the house.
    In New Delhi an Indian spokesman said the plan to send a
flotilla of 20 small unarmed boats with Red Cross supplies to
Jaffna tomorrow would go ahead despite Colombo's objections.
    The confrontation was the latest result of the long and
bitter conflict between Sri Lanka's Buddhist Sinhalese majority
and the Hindu Tamil minority, which has strong ethnic and
cultural links with India's 50 mln Tamils.
 Reuter
