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DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
A new intrative
inthative by the uk cannot guaranti
elsewhere. But bilateral confrack matching offers from a sachcano hope for new commitments suggest
strongly the countries, in particular the US, Canada and from
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it we
without,
Australia, ere-looking to us to giv lead before
Ourselves
apnouncing new sefumitments of their own. They will
expect any commitment to be commensurate with the scale
of the problem and with our special responsibility for
Hong Kong. Anything less would fail to generate tha
Necessary matching offers,
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6. There is substantial pressure in Hong Kong for us to
make a move. The issue is being seen as an important
test of our commitment to the territory.
In this country
there is a significant body of opinion the voluntary themed whil might be sopectio
agencies, Parliament, the media) which believes we should
Including not only to voluntry agencies who might be expetto do more Internationally, attention is now focussing on
all aspects of the boat people problem including
resettlement: there are moves within ASEAN to hold an
international conference on the problem next spring.
time is ripe for us to act.
1.
The
In the past one powerful argument against a new
resettlement commitment has been the fear that this would
induce even greater numbers of people to leave Vietnam in
the hope of resettlement in the West. We believe that
succ
our success
jar
sin getting across the deterrent message of
Substantially
the screening/repatriation policy has gffectively
reduced
eliminated this risk.
8. We have also carefully considered whether our
reception facilities could deal with an increased flow of
refugees. The voluntary agencies argue that they could