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3. There should be a concerted campaign to hold the Vietnamese authorities to their earlier promises to release the
re-education camp prisoners and to permit them to come to the United States with their families. The United States should deal with this problem with flexibility and determination.
4.
Administration Actions:
o The U.S. previously submitted through UNHCR the names of 11,183 people in 2,280 family cases of former political prisoners and has reiterated its concern for the prisoners in written and oral communications to the Vietnamese.
o U.S. officials restated our interest in receiving the re-education camp prisoners and their families at the August meeting.
o The Administration intends to again raise the issue of political prisoners with senior Vietnamese officials at the upcoming UNHCR sponsored ODP policy meetings in Geneva in
the fall.
o Senior Administration officials have in the past and will continue in the future to raise the political prisoner issue with the SRV on all appropriate occaisions.
The United States and the international community should condemn in the strongest terms pirate attacks against refugees, and should stress that Thailand has a special responsibility to take effective measures to combat this problem, including local law enforcement programs and boat registration.
Administrative Actions:
o At U.S. initiative, the UNHCR-Thai Government Anti-Piracy program was instituted in 1981. Since that time the U.S. has provided more than $5.6 million in financial suppport.
o Since the fall of 1985, a new approach instituted by US and Thai officials to emphasize land-based law enforcement has assisted Thai law enforcement officials in achieving significantly more effective results.
o Numbers of arrests have risen; rates of death, abduction and attacks have sharply fallen.
o UNHCR also recently has adopted changes in its anti-piracy program to emphasize land-based law enforcement activities.
o A new, extensive boat registration program is about to get underway.