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with the UNHCR himself, the Americans had the impression that Harling was firmly committed to pursue the proposal. It now looked as if the Indonesians would wish to hold a meeting of the ASEAN countries and the major resettlement countries in Jakarta, probably on 30 April. The Americans hoped that if this meeting took place participants would be able to give assurances of support for the proposal. When asked whether there might not be some advantage in expanding the membership of the proposed meeting, Clark said that he could see some merit in this but that the UNHCR had apparently considered that nothing would be gained from a larger meeting.
4. There was then some discussion of the nature of the guarantees which the Indonesians would demand in respect of refugees sent to the SPC. Clark conceded that this question and the related question of the time that refugees would be permitted to stay on the island had yet to be nailed down. In any discussion of guarantees the Americans would aim to retain the ability to conduct some sort of pre-clearance process so that the US would maintain the right to vet refugees ultimately destined for resettlement here. A member of Clark's staff subsequently suggested that in US thinking resettling countries would maintain their existing quotas for Indochinese refugees but would agree to accept additional quotas to be drawn from the island centre. No-one round the table gave any indication that this would be acceptable to their Governments.
5. Clark and his colleagues were at pains to put over the message that the numbers to be resettled from the SPC would be finite though large. He added that Congress would find it easier to approve additional US finance for the Centre if the Administration could point to the fact that the idea had been broadly accepted by others. In the course of Congressional hearings on refugees in recent weeks he had frequently been asked why other countries were not doing more, given the size of the US programme. Later however Frank Sieverts, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Refugees at the State Department, said that Congress was if anything inclined to pressurise the Administration to increase the number of refugees to be admitted to the US. (I have had some confirmation of this latter point from the House Judiciary Committee's Staff Director; he told me that following Congresswoman Holtzman's visit to the area, Committee members were now inclined to be rather more liberal than the Administration over the admission of additional refugees; he commented that their sympathy had been particularly attracted to the plight of the Laotioan refugees in camps in Thailand.
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