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rate from 7,000 to 14,000 a month, for a total of 168,000
Indochinese in the next twelve months. This is above and
beyond the 250,000 Indochinese refugees the United States
has already settled since 1975.
In addition, we are greatly increasing our financial
contribution to the UNHCR for the care and maintenance of
Indochinese refugees in camps in Southeast Asia. We recently contributed 34 million dollars for this purpose, and we
expect to provide 30 percent of the costs of the Indochinese
refugee program in 1980.
Another significant development at the Geneva meeting was the offer by the Government of the Philippines of a site
for a refugee processing center for 50,000 refugees. Previously the Government of Indonesia had offered to host a processing
center for 10,000 refugees on Galang Island. I understand
a UNHCR team has completed negotiations with both governments
on site locations and construction estimates for these centers.
I hope that refugees can begin to move into them in the near
future, thus further relieving pressures on first-asylum
countries.
The United States intends to contribute about 30 percent
of the construction costs of the refugee processing centers.
It remains a major goal of the United States to see the
principles of a ready grant of first asylum and non refoulement
fully reestablished in the region. We recognize that to ensure that this goal is met, refugee populations must be reduced
significantly.
To this end, we must all work together to
maintain high rates of resettlement and to support the creation
of refugee processing centers.