TNAG-0895-FCO40-1105-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 156

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CONFIDENTIAL

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UNITED KINGDOM MISSION

37-39 RUE DE VERMONT

1202

GENEVA

TELEPHONE 34 38 00

33 23 85

PA

لا

HKK 243

+3/1

HAH Cortazzi Esq CMG

DUSS

FCO

25 July 1979 Stett

RECEIVED IT PROM NO. ST

DESK OPFMC**

DEK

Dear Kugh,

FA

27

Blink A. Parsons

Mr Simpson. Orlebar Lord Ń. Gordon-Lenca

HKGD

UN FOLLOW-UP TO GENEVA MEETING ON INDO-CHINA REFUGEES

1.

•

I had a telephone message from Donald Murray that you would like a letter on the question of the UN follow-up to last week's meeting here on Indo-China refugees.

2.

Bill Buffum went back to New York on Sunday and I was not able to talk to him before he left. I have, however, had a word with someone in the Secretariat here involved in drafting the Secretary-General's declaration. He confirmed what I had imagined, namely that the question of the relationship between the follow- up to the Secretary-General's declaration on the one hand and Hartling's concluding statement on the other had not been specifically considered. It was the assumption of my interlocutor that Waldheim would want to make his report to the General Assembly at a very early stage. If so, that suits us well. It would mean that Ministers would have the Secretary-General's report as a peg on which to hang their remarks on the question of Indo-China' refugees during the course of the Plenary debate which will open in the General Assembly towards the end of September. That debate is, of course, an avowedly political affair and can go well beyond the cautious parameters of Waldheim's declaration, if circumstances so warrant.

3.

This timing also fits in well from the point of view of the next meeting of the Executive Committee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is due to be held in Geneva from 8 to 18 October. On that occasion I would imagine that Hartling will plead for the discussion to be "humanitarian" and not "political. We can judge nearer the time how to interpret any such plea on Hartling's part. But I think we made some headway with the proposition that it is an odd definition of "humanitarian" which requires us to consider the symptoms while ignoring the causes of the disease.

CONFIDENTIAL

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