3.
The solution depends not only on the generosity of the
international community, which was amply demonstrated at Geneva,
but also on the need for a permanent change in the policies which
had led to the exodus. In the single month of June, 70,000 boat
refugees reached the shores of South East Asia. Many more must
have died on the way.
The Secretary-General's report does not claim that the
problem has been solved. At the end of September there were still
over 180,000 boat people in camps in the region. Before the new
influx from Cambodia there were roughly as many land refugees in
Thailand. Even at the new target rate of resettlement, of 25,000
a month, the problem of boat refugees will be with the places of
first asylum for a long time as the Secretary-General pointed out
in his speech to the Committee yesterday.
We welcome the statement of the Vietnamese representative
yesterday that his Government will continue to observe its
commitments, but that falls short of the change which is necessary.
What we have seen since Geneva may be the beginning of a permanent
change in the policies of the Government of Vietnam. But it is
much too early to say with conviction that the problem is well on
the way to solution. A Government which can reduce the outflow of
boat people from 70,000 in June to less than 10,000 in August can
as easily reverse the process, if the root causes of the problem,
which Lord Carrington identified in Geneva as the policies of the
Vietnamese Government, are not adequately dealt with.
/The British