British Embassy
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Mr. Sumpa. Chrle for 545
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P Morgan Esq
United Nations Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Sea Morgan,
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INDOCHINA REFUGEES
Your reference
Our referenca
"C:/4
Rogy
Date 9 April 1979
HKK 243/1
RECEIVED IN
DESK INDEX
по
11 55 672
PA
711.4
RG. $1
Pl. Copy to
SEAO ind
FIKK GD
1. Thank you for your letter of 4 April and the useful background material. John Robinson and I duly attended the meeting which Ambassador Dick Clark hosted at the State Department on 6 April of representatives of the major re-settlement countries for refugees from Indochina. In addition to the UK, France, FRG, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan were represented. The purpose of the meeting was ostensibly to introduce Clark to the Embassies represented, but in fact the Americans spent a great deal of time seeking our support for the proposed Special Processing Centre (SPC). You will I understand already have had an indication of American thinking on this from the US Embassy in London so I shall be brief.
2.
Clark explained the background to his appointment, and expressed the hope that the new inter-agency committee on refugees which he was to chair would enable the US to develop a more coherent and long term policy towards the refugee problem. He confirmed that President Carter had agreed that the US should aim to resettle 7,000 Indochinese refugees per month with effect from March of this year until the end of Fiscal year 1980 ie 30 September 1980. (Over the same period the US would aim to resettle 3,000 refugees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.) The total cost of the US refugee programme would rise in consequence to $580 million of which approximately three-fifths was intended for Indochinese refugees.
3.
Turning to the SPC proposal, Clark said that he initially had had reservations, but now saw its main advantage as lying in the fact that it would extend the refugee "pipeline", and encourage countries of first asylum to continue to take in the boat people. Asked about reports that the UNHCR was not persuaded of the need for the SPC, Clark said that it was true that his Deputy, Mr de Haan, had returned from Indochina rather sceptical about the proposal, but this appeared at least in part to be based on his belief that the flow of refugees was drying up. Clark said that although Congresswoman Holtzman (Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee's sub-committee on Refugees) had apparently been given assurances during her visit to Hanoi that the numbers would go down, the Americans were less sanguine. Moreover, following Mochtar's meeting
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