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TEN NASTIES ON BOAT PEOPLE
1.
VIETNAMESE
2.
3.
BOAT PEOPLE
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Miss Mason Some good ideas here. But
I have redrafted a mil Shorter version.
This could
2. How can you expect people to volunteer to return to Vietnam
before they have been finally screened out and their appeals turned down?
A.
Q.
A.
provide a mepe quarry for fuiter work
143 of them have
have
2
A number already have volunteered. returned. But we accept the logic of the question, and have just concluded work, with the help of UNHCR, on revising the screening process to streamline it. A new procedure has been agreed by ExCo and will be introduced in June. It will take three months, including a period of 28 days for a decision on appeals to be reached. The new procedure should enable 400 to be screened per week; within three months of the Internatinal Conference around 1,000 cases should have been finally decided, enabling a realistic assessment of the progress of the voluntary return programme to be made.
Screening was introduced so as to provide a deterrent. It has failed. Why should anything else work?
It
We accept that screening has not worked as a deterrent. has, however, reduced the problem of resettling refugees to a near-finite one. The number of refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement has been dropping steadily over recent
A
created by months. The new problem created is the future of those who will be determined not to be refugees, who have, as we had anticipated, so far proved to be the great majority. We are concentrating our efforts for the Geneva Conference on agreczy achieving agreement on measures to achieve their
repatriation. We believe that when large numbers do start to return, this will provide a better deterrent.
Q. Vietnam is the pits. It is not surprising people want to
leave. Can we really countenance forcing them to go back?
A.
A major reason for Vietnam's economic condition has been the cost of the Government's Cambodian adventure. We do now