t
CONFIDENTIAL
British Embassy
No 1 Ichiban-Cho Chiyoda-ku Tokyo
Telex J22755 (A/B PRODROME) Telephone 265-5511
F Newton Esa
SEA
FCO
HKK 243/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
14 SEP 1983
;) ec(with PPI-5 below) The Pecte, UND
Miss Walker HKD Mr Mon
(134).
Montgomery Pott Home Offer (Lunar House,
Your reference
Our reference
Date
29 August, 1983
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
REGISTRY
PA
Action Taken
Dea
Newton
HONOLULU CONFERENCE ON REFUGEES
243/2 Resettlement.
1. I called today on Masui, the Director of the MPA's Refugee Division, to obtain his views on the Honolulu meeting on refugees. Masui was the second ranking official in the Japanese delegation to the meeting, which was led by the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nakajima. Apart from briefing me on the discussions, Masui passed me the enclosed selection of documents (not copied to others) including the text of Nakajima's opening statement and a background piece on Japan's response to the refugee problem.
?. Masui explained that the meeting had not been intended as an occasion for decisions but rather as an opportunity for a rank exchange of views. On these terms, the outcome had been "very satisfactory". They believed that Douglas's primary motive in convening the meeting was a domestic political one; he would in August be facing nublic congressional hearings on the Indo-Chinese refugee problem and needed to be able to show that he had been doing something. Thus, all those who had agreed to attend had in one sense been helping Douglas out; but they had also found the occasion useful for their own urposes.
3.
Masui then offered the following rather random impressions of the discussions. He observed that the leader of the Australian delegation, Mr l'est, had given an aggressive and forceful performance. But in advocating a deeper dialogue with the Vietnamese leaders and in raising the possibility of a resumption of Western aid, his views had been well out of line with those of the other participants. He was also somewhat undercut by his officials, who told the Japanese privately that they supported Japan's policy on a freeze on aid to Vietnam and that their Minister was newly elected and thus "rather too attached to his party's election manifesto".
•
Masui thought the main Japanese contribution had been to remind the other participants of the importance of ASEAN views on this problem and to steer them towards conclusions that would be acceptable to ASEAN. The Japanese had also initiated discussions on the need for a programme of voluntary repatriation of Cambodian refugees, an idea which they had rromoted at the 1982 ASEAN dialogue meeting and which had won full support from ASEAN countries. It had been left for the UNHCR to take this forwards through contacts with the Vietnamese and Cambodians, and they had looked to the UNHCR representative at the meeting for a
COMPIDE TAL
progress/