THOUSANDS of desperate Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka have a stark choice: stay and be persecuted or risk the long, dangerous voyage to Australia.

A senior diplomat, experienced in people smuggling matters, said Sri Lanka’s government cared about neither the refugees’ fate nor Australia’s boat people predicament.

Naval intelligence sources told the Herald Sun that Colombo encouraged Tamils to risk the dangerous voyage.

Some Tamil boats have disappeared, though no one knows how many might have perished.

“The only way forward is through multilateral diplomacy using Indonesia, Thailand and even New Zealand to lobby the Sri Lankans,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.

Australia has a full-time ambassador for people smuggling issues, James Larsen, whose job is to work with other governments, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Organisation for Migration.

Mr Larsen’s role is to “implement measures that deliver practical benefits to regional operational agencies to combat people smuggling and trafficking in persons”.

Also yesterday, the Department of Immigration refused to name 100 detainees who have escaped over the past 10 years, though most are believed to be still in Australia.

“As far as photos and identities and such, the Department provides bio-data to police and other relevant law enforcement agencies as part of their investigations. We do not provide this data to the public,” a spokesman said.

Refugee representatives also slammed Tony Abbott’s call for the boats to be turned around.

The Opposition Leader had earlier pleaded for the Government to stop the boats, so people didn’t have to risk their lives on the high seas.

Yesterday, Mr Abbott said: “We’ve got to be able to turn boats around.”

Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul said Mr Abbott knew Indonesia would not tolerate boats being towed back to its ports.

“These statements are just looking for cheap headlines to try and gain some political advantage out of making the refugees political footballs,” Mr Rintoul said.

And Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Mr Abbott’s position was a “thought bubble which seems to be 100 per cent headline and zero per cent policy”.

-  Ben Packham

The British House of Commons expressed regret over the export of arms to Sri Lanka by British companies during the 2002-2007 cease fire period. A number of UK companies exported arms to Sri Lanka during the cease fire period.

Belated regret by UK for arms deal with Sri Lanka – Tamilnet

“In the case of Sri Lanka, arms were exported during ceasefire periods, which, in retrospect was regrettable,” the report released Wednesday by the British House of Commons said. It also mentions that, “[t]he final offensive raised “grave concerns” for human rights,” and adds that the British Government had been concerned about the Sri Lankan situation “for quite a long period of time”. “[t]he review and subsequent revocation of nine extant licences for exports to Sri Lanka is to be welcomed,” the report said in conclusion. Considering the thousands of innocent Tamils killed during the Sri Lanka armed forces’ offensive on Vanni and their continuing distress, the belated regret expressed in diplomatic terms does not in anyway help to erase the cause of the regret, representatives of Tamil civil organizations in UK said.