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(d) Finance: remind the meeting of UK contributions to
UNHCR (over £6 million so far this year - see Annex C) and urge others to be equally generous:
some of the participants will have made no financial contribution at all. Although we are less directly involved in Indo-China than in other areas with serious refugee problems, we have, nevertheless, earmarked £1.5 million in 1978 for the UNHCR Indo-China programme: the last £2 million was pledged as recently as last month. [For the delegation's own information, ODM have asked the Treasury for authority to make a further contribution of £ million. Their decision will be telegraphed to the delegation.]
(e) Selectivity: not seek to intervene in discussion of
the problem of selectivity. [For the delegation's own information, major countries of resettlement (but not the UK: we have not been selective in taking refugees) are likely to be criticised for creaming off well- qualified and professional people from refugee camps in the region. We sympathise with the countries of first asylum in this respect but we do not wish to take a position on this at these consultations.]
(f) Greater use of non-governmental organizations: mention
the hard work of British voluntary agencies, not only in helping to resettle refugees in Britain but also in supporting the UNHCR's programmes, especially in Thailand. [For the delegation's own information, ODM have some funds which are available to British voluntary organiza- tions active on behalf of refugees throughout the world and have offered over £80,000 to British voluntary agencies engaged in refugee relief work in Thailand.] British agencies have taken a very keen interest in the plight of Indo-Chinese refugees and we are grateful to them.
(g) Longer term action: The UK delegation should join with
other countries in the search for territory where refugees could be settled. [For the delegation's own information, we shall need to consider whether UK development aid funds could not be used to enable refugees to be more easily assimilated into a new environment. At the current consultations the UK delegation may, if appropriate, indicate that we would examine such a financial contribution sympathetically. We would hope that other countries, including those who have not been invited to attend these present consultations, would take a similar view.]
ACTION WITH VIETNAM
6. Without taking the lead, the UK delegation should try to establish a widespread acknowledgement of the Vietnamese Government's basic culpability in the problems raised by this unconcluded wave of refugees. (The Vietnamese Government
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