BAGACS (6)
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Second Geneva Conference on Indo Chinese Refugees
14.
Largely at the instigation of the ASEAN countries, a second
Geneva Conference was held in June 1988. It achieved some very significant results and endorsed a Comprehensive Plan of Action to
resolve the problem. The key decisions were
agreement to region wide screening of all boat people;
agreement that all those screened out should eventually go
back (By the same token, the Conference sent a resounding
message from the international community as a whole that those
screened out would not be resettled. Under present
circumstances and for the foreseable future we see absolutely no
prospect of this changing.);
agreement to the resettlement within 3 years of all those
with refugee status.
However the Plan did not go as far as we would have liked on
repatriation. It stated that in the first instance every effort
should be made to persuade boat people to return voluntarily. It
was too vague about how and when alternatives to voluntary repatriation would be introduced.
15. At the Conference, however, the Vietnamese offered bilateral
negotiations on repatriation, and Sir Geoffrey Howe took this up. Α
bilateral agreement was initialled, on 26 June. The agreement was endorsed at a meeting in London between Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nguyen
Co Thach on 28 June. The text of a minute on the modalities of
repatriation of the first group under the terms of the 26 June document were agreed in Hanoi on 1 August and await initialling.
Ministerial discussion of the boat people problem
16.
G
H
OD(K) has discussed the problem on two recent occasions. It
met on 8 June to consider tactics for the Geneva Conference (minutes
attached). And it met again on 29 June to assess the results and consider next steps (minutes attached). At those meetings OD(K)
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