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Mr Male
CC:
HKIOD
RELIEF AID FOR INDO-CHINA
du Jam
Dan
-9/06
1. ODM earlier sought our comments on a submission which they were preparing for their Minister on the question of whether and how to
allocate further relief aid for Indo-China. Their recommendation,
with which we concurred, was that, of the remaining £250,000, £100,000 should immediately be made available for food supplies for Laos; and that the balance of £150,000 should be retained in case Prince Sihanouk made a convincing appeal for aid to Cambodia when he spoke at the UN: failing this, it should be allocated to the UNHCR appeal for resettlement of refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam outside Indo-China. (Including Hong Kong; but not Thailand, which is the subject of a separate UNHCR appeal to which ODM feel unable to respond.)
2.
Mr Baxter of the Far East Department in ODM rang me this morning to say that, now that Prince Sihanouk had spoken at the UN without launching an appeal for money, he would like to go ahead with the allocation of the £150,000 to the UNHCR appeal. I said that we would have no objection to his doing this.
3. The Minister for Overseas Development has minuted that "we should not rule out the possibility of going over the £1 million, eg by doing both Cambodia and UNHCR if the case becomes stronger". By giving the remaining money to UNHCR, we are therefore not completely ruling out the possibility that ODM may be able to make money available to Cambodia if a convincing appeal is launched.
*. Goldsmith
A.K.
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A K Goldsmith South East Asian Dept