[NR 7ACX]
CONFIDENTIAL
UNHCR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING 7-17 OCTOBER 1985
-
Vietnamese Refugees in Hong Kong
Background
1.
There are at present some 10,500 Vietnamese
some 10,500 Vietnamese boat people in camps in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement. Over 90,000 refugees have been resettled from Hong Kong since 1975, but resettlement opportunites are now diminishing. Both UNHCR and the main resettlement countries (particularly the US and Australia) attribute this in part to the fact that the UK, despite its responsibility for the territory, has taken so few refugees from Hong Kong in recent years (88 in 1984 (2.4% of the total resettled from Hong Kong); 5 so far in 1985
(0.2% of the total resettled)).
Report of Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and
Immigration (SCORRI)
It recommended
2. In April 1985 SCORRI published a report entitled "Refugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese". inter alia that the closed centres in Hong Kong should be abolished and their inmates transferred to open centres;
that the UK S
should be relaxed in
immigration criteria for family reunion cases respect of Vietnamese in camps in countries of temporary asylum, and that this UK initiative should be used to attract offers of additional resettlement places from other countries for refugees now in Hong Kong; and that Hong Kong should accept for settlement a proportion of ethnic Chinese from its open camps.
3. On 26 September the Government will publish a White Paper in response to SCORRI's report. With regard to the situation in Hong
Kong,
(i)
it will announce the following:
HVG have decided to accept for resettlement some 500 refugees who have relatives in the UK but who would normally fall
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 45Page 46