[ME1ACZ]
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PA SCORRI
187
LADY YOUNG/PUS MEETINGS WITH MR BRUNNER, STATE SECRETARY, SWISS MFA:
24 SEPTEMBER 1985
Vietnamese Refugees
Points to make
MKCK 243/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
18 SEP 1985
DESK OERIGEL
INDEX
PECISTRY
PA
Action Taken
1. White Paper in response to Home Affairs Select Committee's report
on Vietnamese Refugees will be published on 26 September. While do
not wish to go into full detail in advance of publication, can say
in confidence that HMG will agree
agree to take substantial number of
Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong for resettlement in UK.
2.
Concerned about effects on refugees of longterm stay in transit
centres: also risk of serious disorder if resettlement rate
continues to decline.
3. We note that Switzerland has accpeted some 600 Vietnamese
refugees from Hong Kong since 1975: will shortly be approaching your
officials to ask if you would be willing to consider taking
additional
numbers.
Background
1. 10,500 Vietnamese refugees currently in camps in Hong Kong
awaiting resettlement: the largest number of any place of first
asylum in South East Asia. Refugees are spending increasingly long
periods in camps because of diminishing resettlement prospects.
This
2. The Government will publish a White Paper on 26 September in
response to the Home Affairs Sub-Commitee on Race Relations and
Immigration (SCORRI)'s recent report on Vietnamese refugees.
will announce inter alia HMG's decision to accept some 500
Vietnamese refugees, mostly from Hong Kong, for resettlement in the
UK. We wish to maximise the effect of this decision by pressing
other countries as widely as possible also to take additional
numbers of refugees from Hong Kong.
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