Mr Murray
CC:
Mr Cortazzi
HK&GDMr Watts
UND
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CONFIDENTIAL
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no 1819.7
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GENEVA MEETING ON REFUGEES: ORDERLY DEPARTURE
1. It is not yet clear how the meeting will develop, and the UK position will partly be determined during consultations in Geneva.
The briefs which are being submitted separately deal with the
various themes which will probably run through the meeting. The
purpose of this minute is to consider how the UK should use, in relation to our overall objectives, a theme which may well prove
to constitute the middle ground between condemnation of Vietnam
on the one hand and measures of mere palliation on the other.
2. The Vietnamese defence of their position has hitherto centred
on the claim that they are already doing their best to cooperate
with the rest of the world through their "7 point agreement" of 30 May with the UNHCR. ALL refugees leaving outside that framework are, they say, doing so illegally and contrary to their wishes. This of course slurs over the reasons for such departures and the
Vietnam authorities' own well established role in them. But it
suggests that at the conference Vietnam may well try to disarm
criticism by promising to extend the orderly departure programme
to cover as many refugees as the UNHCR and the resettlement
countries can process and accept.
3.
The dangers of this idea are summarised in Brief No 5, copy attached. It would undoubtedly require careful handling both in discussion and in practice, and could fail because the objectives of the parties are so widely divergent. Perhaps the most awkward problem would be the need to avoid queue-jumping over refugees
already outside Vietnam. Nevertheless there are strong reasons, also outlined in the Brief, why the UK and others should at least respond positively to a proposal along these lines.
14.
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