CONFIDENTIAL
C
D
Nor would the ASEAN states (who would be more interested in the refugees left in their own camps) be concerned to
exert much pressure on behalf of those refugees on the island. In any case, it would seem an impracticable proposition to expect any country to offer blanket guarantees of resettlement for an unknown number of people (this has been regarded by ASEAN as an essential precondition, though there is row a hint that Indonesia might be more flexible Jakarta tel No 59). Even if they did, individual countries' selection criteria would have to go by the board, otherwise there could be a race and inevitable in-fighting among friendly nations to cream off the best refugees;
(d) Refugees thus could languish on the island(s) for years
and become a constant source of embarrassment to the
international community we should be landed with a
second UNRWA, which would demand continuing financial
aid: this burden would undoubtedly fall to Western
countries, including the United Kingdom, whether or not we associated ourselves closely with the proposal,
(e) The UNHCR have themselves told us informally that they are sceptical and do not believe the proposal would be in the best long-term interests of the refugees. They argue that the real problem is the lack of sufficient resettlement places: if there were more of these, there would be nothing to prevent refugees from being resettled from existing countries of temporary asylum, rather than being taken to an intermediate processing centre.
(f)
as we
Britain would be able to accept from the island already do from any country of the region any refugees rescued by UK-registered vessels or having a close connexion with refugees already in the UK. The offer of any additional resettlement places would have to be a collective decision for Ministers, in accordance with the Prime Minister's comment on the Home Secretary's recent offer of a further 1,500 places (Mr Cartledge's letter of 11 January). Unless Ministers were ready to
/contemplate