IT MON
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Resettlement
4.
He
At no stage did Kahachadpai push for the UK to take for resettlement more refugees currently in camps in Thailand. welcomed my explanation of the current stage reached in the post-SCORRI process which should bring movement soon on the resettlement of some 60 refugees currently in camps outside Hong
Kong.
5. The Home Office team did a good job in describing the positive aspects of British resettlement policy and experience, while demonstrating that an open-ended commitment to resettlement would neither solve the refugee problems in the countries of origin or places of first asylum, nor even in the UK for those resettled here. The high unemployment rates of the Vietnamese so far resettled, together with the resulting social problems, are a clear indication that the UK has a limited ability to absorb refugees for resettlement.
The Thai Experience
6.
Kahachadpai talked at some length about the 40,000 Vietnamese who have been allowed to remain in Thailand in 10 specified provinces, mainly in the north-east. He explained that in 1978 the Thai and Vietnamese Governments had held talks about these 40,000. The Vietnamese
agreed, however, to accept only some 3,000. This was odd, since the Vietnamese recognised all of them including their children, as Vietnamese citizens, while Thailand would never grant them citizenship. Kahachadpai was of the view that the Vietnamese wished to keep them in Thailand as a "bargaining chip". When asked, he said he could conceive of negotiations with the Vietnamese at some future date which would allow the return of these Vietnamese to Vietnam. The caveats which the Thai Government would put on this possibility concern more their own bilateral relations with Vietnam and security concerns rather than any guarantees that the returned Vietnamese would be fairly treated. This and the precedent of the 1978 Thai/Vietnamese contacts might be an interesting pointer to how the Thai Government would react to any proposed multilateral approach to the Vietnamese Government involving the countries of first asylum.
Local Integration
7. I bearded Kahachadpai a little on Thai attitudes towards the integration of its populations of refugees and displaced persons. He gave me the standard Thai line, including the fact that the Thais had already absorbed large numbers of other ethnic groups (for example ethnic Burmese, Chinese Nationalists and Hill Tribesmen). Interestingly, he also gave a modified version of the "pull factor" theory as justification for the hard-line Thai attitude on integration, arguing that if Thailand accepted more, more would flee to join them. As in other areas, I was surprised on this at the extent to which the Thai experience as a country of first asylum is leading them to many of the same conclusions as
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