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put to Ministers. We are also committed to accept for resettlement here any Vietnamese refugees rescued by UK-registered vessels for whom places cannot be found elsewhere and to consider for resettlement any refugees with a tie or connexion with the UK.
4
Since the UNHCR's office was established in 1951, Britain has been a generous contributor to his funds: last year we gave nearly £7m, of which just over £2m was earmarked for the SE Asia programme. The latest provisional estimate for the total cost of this programme during 1979 is US$ 42 million.
5
Although close to 300,000 refugees have been resettled outside the region, more than that number awaits resettlement including about 73,000 boat refugees, who present the worst humanitarian problem. The Indonesian offer of an island as a processing centre will not solve the refugee problem in the region but it may ease, for a time, the congestion in some of the camps. We should like to adopt a reasonably positive attitude towards the proposal not only because, as a matter of principle, we should support any move which may go some way towards solving the refugee problem, but also because of our special responsibility for Hong Kong, which is currently accommodating about 25,000 Vietnamese bat refugees, and because we should be seen to be supporting this ASEAN initiative.
6
Mr O'Brien, our Ambassador at Jakarta, will represent the UK at the conference. The Indonesians have agreed that he may be accompanied by a representative of the Hong Kong Government (Mr Orr, Assistant Political Adviser).
7
Although the Indonesian Government have asked participating countries to be ready to commit themselves at the conference either to take refugees from the centre or to firm promises of financial support, it would be inappropriate for our representative to make any firm commitments until we have a clearer idea of how
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