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ANNEX C
CHILEAN REFUGEES
Following the overthrow of President Allende by the Chilean armed forces on 11 September 1973, it is estimated that over 150,000 refugees have left Chile. Most of them are Chileans who have been exiled or who felt their position endangered by the policies of the military Government. In addition over 5,000 non-Chileans (mainly Brazilians, Bolivians and Uruguayans) who had settled in Chile during the administration of President Allende, have left the country.
The military Government continue their repressive policies towards their political opponents. Consequently the flow of refugees has been maintained. However, a number of countries, including Argentina and Peru and some Western European countries, are now no longer eager to accept new refugees. Communist countries, with the exception of Romania, have from the beginning taken comparatively few refugees.
The
The policy of HMG towards the admission of Chilean refugees was established in a statement by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on 27 March, 1974, in which he announced that "The Home Office will consider applications from Chilean refugees sympathetically". Home Office policy over admissions is kept under review and the Home Secretary announced in the House of Commons in July, 1975, a change of emphasis designed to give priority to those who are in real danger, who have family connections here or who are acceptable as students or academics. All approvals are in any case subject to tests of personal acceptability and to the continuing availability of adequate reception arrangements. As a consequence of this change of emphasis the Home Office are able to weed out more quickly applicants who are not acceptable, and have thus reduced the backlog of pending applications.
To the end of August, we have received over 9,800 visa applications from Chileans, of which over 3,000 have been approved. Of these, 1,654 have arrived in the UK the rest having either gone elsewhere or been prevented from leaving Chile or, in some cases, disappeared. According to figures produced in March by ICEM the UK was third in the league of countries accepting refugees from Chile after Sweden and Romania. Since then it is almost certain that we have overtaken Romania.
HMG donated £20,000 to the International Red Cross for its work in Chile in June, 1974, and a further £20,000 in May, 1975. We have also contributed a total of £250,000 towards the expenses incurred by the UNHCR in resettling refugees from Chile.
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