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CONFIDENTIAL
The ro/..
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CALL BY THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES M.
FILE
742
pa. UNS 243/44
JEAN-PIERRE HOCKE
ON THE SECRETARY OF STATE: 10 am ON WEDNESDAY 29 OCTOBER
Present
amily!
Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Howe
Mr P K Williams, Head UND
Mrs S Rogerson, Assistant UND
Mr R Culshaw, APS
HKK 166/1
RECEIVED IN RECH
27 NOV 1986
TOY
M.
Jean-Pierre Hocke,
UN High Commissioner for
Refugees
Mr P Adams, UNHCR,
Head of Fund Raising
Mr O Volfing, UNHCR
Representative in UK
1. After opening courtesies, Ma Hocké said that there was a need to
focus not only on problems of refugees but on solution of political problems underlying refugee movements. It was not a question of donor and beneficiary countries but of a common approach, drawing on
the options of voluntary repatriation local integration and resettlement. Given that over 80% of refugees were in a country of
first asylum, voluntary repatriation remained the preferable
solution and the international community must seek to create
conditions under which refugees could return. Local integration remained a possibility in some areas, notably Africa where tribal
links existed. A global approach was needed to the question of
resettlement. Sudan had sent a significant signal at EXCOM that
they were keeping a close watch on European reluctance to take in
refugees, and would consider the implications for their own.
position.
He
2. The Secretary of State noted that resolution of political
problems was the most attractive but most difficult solution.
had the impression that more Vietnamese presented themselves to
developed countries than did Sudanese or Afghans; he wondered what
determined the pace and state of movement from countries of first
asylum. M. Hocké said it was a combination of factors. In 1979/80
the agreed solution to the outflow of Vietnamese refugees was resettlement; for current refugees from Cambodia and Laos (largely
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