8.
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The SCORRI report recommends, inter alia, that:
(a)
(b)
the Home Office relax family reunion criteria in respect of
Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong with relatives in the UK;
the closed camps be abolished;
(c) if the closed camps are not abolished, the F CO put on
record immediately the circumstances in which it would
withdraw its sanction for the closed camp policy;
(d)
more be done to prepare inhabitants of the camps for
resettlement, through better training schemes;
(e) relaxation of family reunion criteria by Britain be used as
bargaining counter to persuade other countries to take
more of the refugees;
a
(f) Hong Kong accept for settlement a proportion of the ethnic
Chinese in its open camps;
(g) the FCO make resolution of Hong Kong's
Vietname se refugee
foreign
population a major priority in its dealings with
governments,
9.
UK.
The
report has So far attracted little press attention in the
In Hong Kong, recommendations (a) and (c) have been welcomed
but there is strong opposition to recommendations (b) and (f). It
is pointed out that Chinese refugees are forcibly returned to China.
Many would like to see Vietnamese refugees forcibly returned to
Vietnam.
10. Mr Luce has proposed to the Secretary of State that we try to
persuade the Home Office to accept a continuing UK annual
resettlement quota of around 500 and to examine with the UNHCR the
prospects of using progress in this area to persuade other countries
to
take
more
refugees.
He
has
recommended
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against involuntary