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Resettlement Offers for Refugees in Closed Camps
9. Mr Cooper informed me that before 1986 roughly one in four refugees accepted for resettlement was from a closed camp. He did not have current figures for the ratio, but he suspected the ratio could now be one in two or one in three as more resettlement countries were accepting refugees from the closed camps. Indeed many resettlement countries were dividing their attention equally between the closed camps and the open camps.
Local Integration/Settlement in Hong Kong
10.
UNHCR are as disappointed as everyone else that the Hong Kong settlement offers are being refused by the refugees: so far about 40 have been accepted for local settlement and UNHCR fear the prospects are not good for increasing this number. They consider that the Hong Kong 1986 quota for local integration must be filled: otherwise they fear this could have a negative influence on resettlement countries. UNHCR ask if the Hong Kong Government could examine the position and let UNHCR have suggestions of how the local settlement quota could be filled. UNHCR suggest that the number of refugees applying for local integration could be increased if Hong Kong were able to make its criteria more flexible, for example, by extending the qualification of ethnic Chinese to those refugees who speak Cantonese. Mr Cooper informed me that this was the line that UNHCR had taken with the Nordic countries who had agreed to accept ethnic Vietnamese who spoke Cantonese.
11.
Another suggestion is that UNHCR and the Hong Kong Government could operate a propaganda programme among the refugees to discourage refugees from waiting for resettlement offers from third countries instead of accepting the Hong Kong offer. He informed me that UNHCR had already started doing this. He suggested that the Hong Kong Government could look carefully at any refugee in an open camp who was working locally and who refused the Hong Kong offer of local settlement. Why should such a person be allowed to stay in the open camps with virtually free accommodation and facilities? Could consideration be given to placing him in a closed camp and in his place putting a "long-stayer" from the closed camp into the open camp? Another idea would be to emphasize to the refugees the positive advantages of integration in Hong Kong and the negative aspects of refusing the Hong Kong offer, in particular the fact that no other resettlement country would be prepared to consider them.
12.
Mr Cooper then reminded me that the priorities set by EXCOM itself for durable solutions were first, voluntary repatriation (which was not considered appropriate for the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong), second, local integration and third, resettlement in a third country. He asked why a refugee who refused a perfectly acceptable offer of local integration should then be allowed to have a choice under the third priority.
13. Finally, Mr Hansson summarised by saying that UNHCR would find it most useful, well in advance of the October EXCOM meeting, to discuss with us our, and Hong Kong's, ideas on how future policy should develop. In considering
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