DSR 11C
Turning to the proposal in your letter that Vietnamese
refugees currently in camps should be offered
resettlement in Indonesia and the Philippines, I was
interested to see how your thinking has evolved since
your exchange of letters with Richard Luce during the
summer before last. As our informal contacts at that
time indicated, there are problems with the ideas you put
forward. In addition to the points made by Richard Luce,
you might welcome a few further observations.
The opposition of the ASEAN states on economic and
security grounds to the idea of local integration for
Indochinese is clearly stated and of long standing.
would be the legal status of the refugees in the two
countries?
What
If they were to be granted citizenship, there
must be a danger that they would use their new passports
to travel to join their relatives in the traditional
resettlement countries. If not, I doubt that the
Philippines and Indonesia would be receptive to the
creation of a kind of isolation centre for stateless
persons.
The only real solution to the problem of Vietnamese
refugees will, of course, come when the Vietnamese
Government begins to fulfill its vital responsibility to
its citizens, creating conditions of safety, justice and
prosperity as the incentive for its people to remain in
and for those who have fled to choose to
their country
return. We shall continue to work to this end.