TNAG-0884-FCO40-1094-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 160

خانگی

43-77 CODE 18-77

Mr Stimson

CONFIDENTIAL

المدينة

ILA

INDO-CHINA REFUGEES.

RECEIVED

Der INDEX

2 3 APR 1979

Reference..

10. 51 M Williamson f 20.4

J20.4

on

1. Mr Kitajima of to Japan 23 Embassy called yesterday, instructions, to discuss the Indo-China refugee problem and to put a number of questions to us about UNHCR's Indo-China programme.

2. He said that the Japanese Government had pledged a voluntary contribution of US$ 11.5 million to the UNHCR for the Indo-China programme for 1979 and that the necessary procedures had started for disbursement of that amount. In answer to his question, I told him that since June last year we had ourselves pledged just over £2 million for that programme, much of which had already been paid. I also told him that for 1979 we had pledged £3.5 million for UNHCR's general programme which now includes the cost of bringing assistance to the refugees in Indo-China. Mr Kitajima said that, on the basis of the current refugee case load in South-East Asia, the UNHCR estimated that they would need US$ 60 million in 1979 to cover the needs of these refugees. Did we think the estimate was realistic? I said that on past experience I would not be surprised if this estimate would need to be revised upwards during the course of this year: the overall refugee case load would probably get bigger and certainly the numbers leaving for permanent resettlement were still not keeping pace with the number of new arrivals. He asked whether we would be making additional contributions for the Indo-China refugees and, if so, how much these were likely to be.

I told

him that we would consider any further appeals from the UNHCR and that, although we had given no commitments in this regard, our contributions to various UNHCR programmes tended to represent roughly 10 per cent of the total cost.

3. Mr Kitajima asked whether we had made an assessment of the likely outflow from Vietnam this year and whether we thought the present refugee case load in South-East Asia would change. I told Mr Kitajima that any estimate would need to depend on quite a number of variable factors including the attitude of the Vietnamese Government towards its ethnic Chinese population, the successful implementation of the measures agreed between UNHCR and the Vietnamese authorities to allow people to leave, the attitude of countries of first asylum and of countries of permanent settlement. People were still fleeing from Vietnam and, so far as we could see, would probably continue to do so for quite some time to come. Although the number of new arrivals had decreased over the past few months, the overall case -load was increasing slightly. I said I thought that some countries eg USA, Canada, Australia would continue to take refugees thus avoiding any dramatic increase in the present case-load. I told him of our own decision to admit 1,500 refugees from the area this year. I then said that although Thailand's and Malaysia's intake of boat refugees had not risen sharply in recent months, Hong Kong's certainly had. I emphasised the serious difficulties in this regard which faced Hong Kong and the need for more refugees to be taken from the Colony for permanent settlement elsewhere.

CONFIDENTIAT

/4.