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persuading Latin American countries to take more, they should be reminded that as they had been helped in the past by Europe and by UNHCR, it was now their turn to offer assistance;
providing more resettlement places and funds.
12. Mr Murray referred to the airlift of 5,000 family re- unification cases from mid-1975, when a weekly plane had left Saigon for Hong Kong. Mr Jaeger said that the Latin American countries had no machinery, such as voluntary organisations, to receive immigrants, and they might ask for financial help to make the necessary arrangements. Transport and resettlement would be high. In 1975 Bolivia had suggested a figure of $10,000 per person. Mr Hartling added that money might grease the resettlement machinery.
13. Mr Blaker asked whether Special Processing Centres, like the one in Galang, could be developed for permanent resettle- ment. Mr Hartling replied that a team was going out to Galang and also to Tara, an island in the Philippines. However, SPCs were not a solution because they merely lengthened the time a refugee had to serve in camps before departure for permanent settlement. It was much better not to have a long pipeline which disrupted the education of children etc. He was against the creation of permanent camps of 100,000 or more which would only create another Palestinian question. UNHCR could not feed people for generations and there would be the political problem of growing demands for autonomy or that Vietnam might claim sovereignty. There were no uninhabited islands left suitable for permanent settlement. Mr Dayal asked rhetorically who could possibly resettle the Mong tribesmen from Laos who had fled to Thailand?
14. Mr Blaker enquired about the timing of the conference. Mr Hartling said he had no information on this, but that he hoped to advise the Secretary General on its feasibility by the end of the month when he comes to Geneva for the ACC. Mr Dayal referred to the US proposal to set up a steering committee in New York to discuss the conference, which was mentioned in a letter that the High Commissioner had received that morning from the Secretary General. Mr Blaker said that 56 Missions in London had been called in to the FCO and that a generally favourable response had been received. Mr Hartling asked what should be the concrete results of such a conference. He had some doubts about the suggestion for a conference in Bangkok; he did not want to repeat the December consultations; he thought that his meeting with the Asian Ambassadors in Kuala Lumpur last September had been useful. Mr Blaker said that it was hoped Ministers would attend and that he too was doubtful about Bangkok as the venue, because it would focus too much on the Thai problem. Mr Murray then asked whether UNHCR were assuming as we were that Vietnam intended to expel all its ethnic Chinese, and what could be done to persuade Thailand and Malaysia not to push away refugees. Mr Hartling commented that
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