TNAG-0793-FCO40-997-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1978 — Page 82

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UNHCR Conference

8. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has invited the UK to participate in an international conference, to be held in Geneva

on 11 and 12 December, to help find solutions to the Indo-Chinese

refugee problem. This may be the first of a series of such meetings.

We should like to make a useful and practical UK contribution to the

conference. We do not exclude the possibility of discussing there

ways to get the Vietnamese Government to desist from its harsh policy; but we could not condone on human rights grounds the forcible return of the victims to Vietnam against their will.

9. In his recent address to the UNHCR Executive Committee (attached

page 6 is the relevant one), the High Commissioner for Refugees

called on states to announce, where possible, the number of Indo-

Chinese refugees, both land and boat refugees, they would be prepared

to take over a longer term in order to help UNHCR's future planning arrangements for resettlement. The conference will consider the whole problem in the region, not just the Vietnamese exodus.

paper.

10. The scale of the refugee problem is set out in the attached Among other EEC countries, France, as might be expected, has a generous record in accepting Indo-Chinese refugees. The FRG is reported to have recently informed the Malaysians that it will accept 1,000 Vietnamese refugees from Malaysia, together with about 500 from the HAI HONG.

11.

There are at present 1,236 Indo-Chinese refugees in the UK, of whom over 600 are "boat refugees". Our current policy is to accept ultimate responsibility for all refugees rescued by UK- registered vessels who cannot be resettled elsewhere. Apart from this open-ended commitment, we have admitted a small number of

Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong about 113 since 1975.

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12. The US Embassy have urged a high level of representation at

the conference: the Americans themselves are thinking in terms of fielding a State Department Under-Secretary for Political Affai

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