幛
RESTRICTED
The "ROLAND"
9. In November last year, members of the Asian and World Conference on Religion and Peace (ACRP/WCRP), who were meeting at Singapore, were moved when they visited some of the "boat people" stranded on a freighter in Singapore harbour without permission to land. ACRP/WCRP launched a project to rescue refugees thought to be drifting on small vessels out at sea. Unfortunately, UNHCR had not been consulted.
10. A converted minesweeper "ROLAND" was chartered by ACRP/WORP. It took 300 "boat people" aboard in January. These "boat people"
were not, however, in distress at sea. About 200 were taken from camps in Malaysia where they already had temporary asylum: the remainder were taken from Malaysian shores but had not yet registered as refugees. The intention of the organisers was to take "ROLAND" to Australia or Guam to stage before TV cameras a flotilla
P
of 300 refugees leaving the ship and coming ashore on small rafts. Australia and Guam refused to allow this, demanding their right to screen such refugees beforehand. UNHCR were deeply concerned that this event would jeopardise their own carefully and delicately mounted programme in the area.
11. The Malaysians eventually agreed to allow the passengers to disembark and some have already been resettled in third countries. Of the remaining 190, about 10 appear to be eligible to go to the USA. There are thus still some for whom UNHCR must find places of resettlement. We told UNHCR in mid-May that we would be prepared to < accept applications from a small number of them, but within our agreed quota of 116.
The "LEAP DAL"
12. This is more complicated. The "LEAF DAL" is an old coastal oil tanker, chartered by the same group, which went into Thailand and took on 252 persons in February. Only a handful were "boat people". More than 200 were Laotians. Only 50 were registered with UNHCR. Most paid an "agent" up to 800 US dollars for "a place to Australia".
RESTRICTED
/13
: