ROBAIK
CONFIDENTIAL
LORD GLENARTHUR'S OFFICE MEETING ON VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN
HONG KONG: 24 MARCH 1988
Present:
HUD 243/12
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ния
( MAR 1988
Lord Glenarthur
Mr Eggar
Mr McLaren
Mr Hum, HKD
Mr Reddaway, PS/Lord Glenarthur
Dr Reilly, SEAD
Mr Footman, HKD
Miss Slater, HKD
39
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