Shooting stops flow of refugees

Press, 27 November 1979, Page 8

Shooting stops flow of refugees

NZPA-R,euter Bangkok Shooting incidents in huge border refugee encam#, ment and resistance from Khmer Serei (Free Khmer) guerrilla leaders has interrupted the flow of Kampuchean refugees into Thai, land, refugee officials have I reported. * They said yesterday that the shooting had delayed the flow of refugees into Thailand for several hours, and fewer than 3000 people had been brought into Thailuu in a day from two huge frontier shanty towns sheltering more than 400,000 people. Shooting had been heard in one of the camps, oppo. site the eastern frontier village of Nong Samet, which houses some 180,000 people They said colleagues on the spot had not gone into the camp and did not know why shooting had broken out or who was responsible. Military sources at the border said they had no information on the incidents.

Officials said that at a nearby encampment to which about 250,000 people have fled from their faminestricken country in search of food and safety Khmer Serei leaders had stood at the entrance to prevent people leaving. Relief agencies are trying to move them into a huge camp 12km from inside Thailand, officially termed a temporary transit centre, from which they would be taken later to more permanent shelter. But some leaders of the Khmer Serei, loosely knit groups of guerrillas opposed to the Vienamese-led forces of the Phnom Penh Administration and to the Khmer

Rouge guerrillas of the ousted Prime Minister, Pol Pot, have opposed the operation. About 3000 people demonstrated in front of the larger camp demanding a halt to the move. A spokesman among them said the people were needed to fight the Vietnamese-led forces, which ousted Pol Pot last January and installed a pro-Hanoi administration. Khmer Serei leaders have told reporters they were willing to let the old, the sick, and the very young leave the sprawling bamboo-and-grass shanty town — but not the young and ablebodied. Military sources at the border said the sound of shelling had been heard across the border, but it appeared to be coming from deeper inside Kampuchea, away from the immediate frontier area where the great mass of people is living.