4
tragic situation was dominated by diplomatic and bureaucratic confusion.
Conditions for Vietnamese boat people in Sikhiu camp had slightly improved. Pirate attacks on boat people remained a horrific problem.
The Burmese Army had been operating against Karen resistance groups in Burma. They had closed down all but one trading post and made sweeps against villages from which they believed resistance groups operated. As a result there were now 15,000 border crossers in camps in north- west Thailand. It was noted that Karen leaders considered Britain to have considerable responsibility for their situation as they had failed to ensure their rights on granting independence to Burma.
Martin Barber (BRC) pointed out that this was an area in which voluntary agencies were taking a lead, under the co-ordination of the C.C.C.D.P.T.. UNHCR had not been asked to help and were not involved.
Graeme Jackson (BRC) said there had been interesting articles on Karen refugees in the "Far Eastern Economic Review". He said he would arrange a meeting of interested agencies with Jack Dunford if he was in the U.K.
Bill Allen (Ockender. Venture) who would be leaving for Thailand on
October, was asked to watch the new Lao screening process and the consequences for those repatriated tu Lac. It was hoped he would give report on his return.
5. TAMIL REFUGEES IN SRI LANKA
Marcus Thompson (Oxfam) said that Oxfam had had involvement both with displaced people within Sri Lanka and with Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu Province. He said there had been continued disturbances in Eastern Province at Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Parad Grapor and in the north- central area. The disturbances usually followed the pattern of Tamil separatist attacks on police or army vehicles or positions followed by retaliation against Tamil civilians. The conflict was becoming increasingly one between Tamils and Sinhalese, rather than just Tamils and the security forces. There had been incidents in the Jaffna Peninsula such as the assassination of two moderate Tamil politicians. The peace talks at Bhutan had failed. According to a well-informed colleague in Sri Lanka, there were 52,000 displaced people throughout Sri Lanka, 30,000 being around Trincomalee in 47 "camps" Oxfam was providing "bottomless pit" relief assistance in the form of cooking utensils, food and fuel, but plans to help rebuilding were undergoing re-evaluation due to the uncertain situation and the continual increase in numbers to cater for. There was no prospect of an immediate improve- ment in the situation.
Martin Ennals (International Emergency Committee on Sri Lanka) said that this emergency committee had been set up following consul- tations with European developmental organisatons in order to take up political pressure issues that were preventing development work. They had also set up an umbrella organisation called the Standing International Forum on Ethnic Conflict, Development and Human Rights
(24 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1LS - 01-405 7382). It had been suggested that this organisation should merge with another recently formed organisation called International Alert, which had been created with a view to seeing what international organisations could do to prevent genocide. It was believed the merger would be formalised on 11 October.
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