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DKK DA3/393.
RECEYS
INDE
- 7 NOV 1986
RY
taken
gmek
5/12
RESTRICTED
Mr Leota 860
British Embassy
Bangkok
29 October 1986
-зла
PA VRs -351
ра
FXG
Centry Revelfa
RV Court Esq
SEAD
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1
Draw Robown,
REFUGEES IN THAILAND
We have been grateful to have been kept in the picture on developments on the "Honolulu Group", and more generally on discussions surrounding Vietnamese refugees, Scorri et al.
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In this context, you may be interested to see the enclosed copy of an article which appeared in the August edition of the monthly UNHCR publication "Refugees". This article by Judith Kumin who until recently was the "Durable Solutions" officer in the Bangkok UNHCR Office - is somewhat impressionistic, and is by way of a valedictory at the end of her two years here in Thailand. It nevertheless usefully identifies the categories of refugees in Thailand, breaking them down into both origin and length of stay. As you will see, the Thais have a considerable long-stayer (over 4 years) problem in every category, save for the Vietnamese refugees. As I have explained in my letter of
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September, recording M. Hocke's visit to Thailand, it is the scale of this wider Indo-Chinese refugee long-stayer problem (more than 58,000 people) in Thailand that tends to exercise, under- standably, my colleagues in the Embassies of major resettlement countries here.
3. In addition to the figures Ms Kumin quotes, there are of course already some 1200-1500 "screened out" Laotians (who failed to qualify as refugees under a joint UNHCR/Thai Government run steering programme for arrivals from Laos). This category of "illegal immigrants" is likely to become an increasing (and long-staying) problem for the Thais. David Wyatt has reported separately on our meeting with the Lao Charge d'Affaires here, and his comments that the LPDR would not be prepared to take back anyone from this group, or the refugee camps for that matter, who did not want to return of their own free will to Laos, i.e. the vast majority of the "screened-out" Laotians. It is all very well, and indeed logical from our point of view, to support a system which seeks to identify the "economic migrants" or "illegal immigrants", but what to do with them?
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