CONFIDENTIAL
The fact was that, despite widespread reconnaissance by P3s and helicopters and with the Kittihawk in the area, the US Navy had picked up only 143 refugees since 21 July. This tended to undermine the argument that the presence of such ships acted as a magnet attracting people to take to the boats. Furthermore there was a danger that if people went on decrying the presence of the 7th Fleet because of the so-called magnet effect, as the Indonesians and Malaysians had been doing (and Cater had also spoken strongly in that vein a week ago), this would provide an excuse to Vietnam · not to abide by the moratorium and to claim that refugees were being enticed out to sea despite their best endeavours. were very concerned that this should not happen.
4.
The Americans
On reprocessing centres Clark said things were going well in the Philippines. The Americans were working closely with the Philippine Government and Mrs Marcos was now very interested. The aim was to get the first 10,000 into the reprocessing centre within six weeks and to reach 50,000 by November. In order to avoid the Indonesian precedent of inaction they were urging strongly an early UNHCR presence. As for who should go to the reprocessing centre, Clark recalled that by the rules established at the Jakarta Conference for Galang the candidates would need to be all pre-processed and guaranteed final re-settlement. But he did not think it was for the United States to make the decision; it was an ASEAN initiative. If Hong Kong was included among sources to qualify, well and good. He wondered whether the Hong Kong Government had talked to the Philippines about this. Clark referred to the problem of land refugees from Thailand. These refugees were frankly of "higher concern" to Congress than Vietnamese refugees going to Hong Kong since many were Meng tribesmen who had fought for the Americans. Many were Categories 1 and 2, ie the direct relations of people enjoying American citizenship and even for them there was a 14-16 month waiting period. If one looked at Categories 1 to 3, some people had been in camps in Thailand for as long as four years.
5. As for going beyond the 2,000 per month offtake for Hong Kong, Clark said he was personally sympathetic and this was "conceivable", but he was reluctant to say anything at the present time since he was not sure he could deliver. There were a number of factors to be considered including the policy of the government toward first asylum, total numbers in the area, and close association of refugees with claims on the US. Hong Kong had lower category people than any of the other major first asylums because of the high incidence from North Vietnam (though he was aware that there had recently been some change in the proportions reaching Hong Kong). He produced figures (copy enclosed) showing that while the 2,000 per month ceiling constituted 14% of the total monthly offtake from the area, Hong Kong's proportion of the total of refugees in camps throughout the region was no more than 19%; the discrepancy was not very great.
6. Turning to the practical problems of reaching monthly ceilings, Clark said whereas he had earlier been assured by the INS people in Hong Kong that they could move 2,000 at any time, in practice it was not as easy as they had thought to reach this kind of total. each refugee there had to be a dossier and a biography which after
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