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United Kingdom Mission
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Robert,
DKK 243/8 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
INDRE.
15 DEC 1986
Your reference
Our reference UN 243/518/1
Date 5 December 1986
REGISTR Action Taken
mek.
16//2.
LAST PAPER
*when
THAILAND: SCREENING AND VOLUNTARY REPATRIATION PROGRAMMES OF LAOTIANS
1. Please refer to paragraph five of your letter of 13 November to Peter Bean.
2. I called on Mr Mouchet, the UNHCR desk officer for Thailand, on 5 December to discuss the two programmes for the return of Laotians in Thailand to Laos.
3. As far as the screening programme is concerned, Mr Mouchet confirmed that there had been no change in the position as given in paragraphs 3 and 4 of my letter, reference UN 243/5, of 4 November to Tim Trevan.
4.
Mr Mouchet informed me that nearly 2,000 "screened-out" people were waiting to be returned to Laos. UNHCR had submitted the first list of potential returnees (61 people) to the Lao Government who sought further information about the persons visited which UNHCR had since given. The Lao Government were now considering the list: Mr Mouchet was reasonably confident that they would agree to accept this first batch, but he had no idea *this agreement would be forthcoming. He added that the Lao Government were aware that the total caseload was almost 2,000. UNHCR were planning to
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submit future lists in batches of 200 or 250 to ease the re-integration process.
5. Mr Mouchet saw two recent events as signs of encouragement: first, the recent confirmation of the improvement in bilateral relations between Thailand and Laos which had been the main stumbling-block to the Lao Government's agreeing to accept returnees and, secondly, the reconfirmation in September (as reported in paragraph 4 of Bangkok telno 467) of the Lao Government's willingness to receive screened-out persons. As a result of this re-confirmation, UNHCR had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Lao Government in
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/September