ROBAIK
CONFIDENTIAL
LORD GLENARTHUR'S OFFICE MEETING ON VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN
HONG KONG: 24 MARCH 1988
Present:
Lord Glenarthur
Mr Eggar
Mr McLaren
Mr Hum, HKD
Mr Reddaway, PS/Lord Glenarthur
Dr Reilly, SEAD
Mr Footman, HKD
Miss Slater, HKD
MUD 243/5
RECE!
2 MA
INDEX
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1. Lord Glenarthur said the crucial question seemed to him to be
whether we could secure collective Ministerial agreement to a
commitment which went beyond the 468 named individuals. He asked
whether there would be advantage in pursuing the idea of making any
new UK commitment conditional on additional commitments from
others.
2. Mr Eggar said that without such a condition it could be
difficult to obtain collective Ministerial
agreement to an
additional commitment. A package which could show that an
additional 100 places in the UK would lead to, say, an additional
500 places elsewhere, and which included an element of selecting the
best refugees, would go down well in domestic terms. He was very
sceptical about the efforts UNHCR had made to secure additional
commitments from others on the basis of our commitment to take the
He was concerned that the arguments for an additional
commitment were very much the old FCO arguments. We would need
domestic political arguments. He noted that there was probably not much general opposition to an extra commitment in the House, but
such opposition could nonetheless still be orchestrated.
468.
3.
Mr McLaren said that we could try to secure commitments from UNHCR and governments of the major resettlement countries on the
CONFIDENTIAL