CODE 18-77
HUD
245/12
Reference......
MR4AAZ
Miss Slater
? APR 1988
Copy
Mr
Agams Foli
хра
N
21/4
BRITISH REFUGEE COUNCIL
1.
Dr
On 19 April I attended the latest quarterly meeting of the Asia Committe of the British Refugee Council. Barber, Director of the BRC was unable to attend as he had flown to Geneva with Frank Judd of Oxfam to discuss the situation in the camps on the Thai/Cambodia border with the UN Secretary General. I was told by one of the participants that there is a proposal that UNHCR should become more directly involved in the administration of the camps. As you know, the NGOs have been lobbying for this for some time.
2.
Hong Kong
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The UNHCR representative, Mr Volfing, said that in relation to Hong Kong there had been some "very unfortunate" developments in Thailand. The USA's concern was to try to appease the Thais by increasing their offtake and urging others to do likewise (comment: this was not how I interpreted the US's position at the recent ICG meeting) but this had led to pressure on the US from another unnamed ASEAN country which had also threatened to indulge in a policy of "push-offs" if the US looked likely to reduce its offtake to compensate for pressure on Thailand. This left Hong Kong an easy target for reductions in the US quota, to offset increases from elsewhere in the region. Mr Volfing believed that the best argument to adopt to encourage Canada and Australia to do more in Hong Kong would be to obtain early indications from HMG that we were prepared to do more after the present quota of 468 had been filled.
TABET
As
3. The meeting was chaired by Lord Ennals who gave an
He said the Chinese account of his recent visit to Tibet. authorities had been very helpful by giving advanced motives that no-one should attempt to make contact with his delegation. This had led to them receiving considerable useful information, as ordinary Tibetans made great efforts to speak to them, or to slip papers into their pockets. a result, the visit had been better than they could have expected. It was clear that Chinese information was "totally incorrect at every stage". For example, a demonstration of 5 March which, according to the Chinese, had been attended by only a handful of dissidents, had in
Lord Ennals is reality involved more than 10,000 Tibetans. producing a full report on his visit and promised to send a copy to the FCO. It should be ready in the next two to three weeks.
MiDlly.
M D Reilly
South East Asian Department
21 April 1988
CC: Mr Footman, HKD
Mrs Smith, FED
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