TNAG-0896-FCO40-1106-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 191

PJ Williamson Esq Hong Kong & General Dept FCO

Dear Williamson

CONFIDENTIAL

872

Mr

Qugatantl

Muisto.

BRITISH EMBASSY

BONN

14 AUGUST 1979

৪ड

די

HKK 203/6~

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO.

DES

INDEX

llo

1 6 AUG 1979

FICER

PA

Alwoblems 3019

1530

RESETTLEMENT OF REFUGEES FROM HONG KONG

1.

During David Wilson's visit here last week (our tels nos 445 to FCO and 4 to Hong Kong (copies enclosed for UKMIS Geneva) refer) the Federal Ministry of the Interior maintained that the decision as to which country of first asylum refugees should come from to the FRG was reached by the Auswärtiges Amt in collaboration with UNHCR. David thought that it would be useful to find out what advice the UNHCR representative here has been giving the Federal Government since in other places UNHCR have recommended that refugees should be taken from countries in which their lives were most at risk, eg Malaysia and Thailand, rather than giving due weight to Hong Kong.

2. I accordingly called yesterday on Zarjevski, the UNHCR representative here, to ask what role UNHCR played in the Indo/Chinese refugee resettlement effort in the FRG. Zarjevski gave the impression that he had less influence with the Auswärtiges Amt than the Interior Ministry had suggested. His role was primarily one of trying to stimulate offers of more places from the Länder and persuading the Auswärtiges Amt to speed up the necessary processing. Names of refugees willing to come to the FRG were given to German embassies in countries of first asylum by UNHCR representatives there. Although Zarjevski did not say so in so many words it was clear from what he said that UNHCR were most concerned about refugees in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand as opposed to those in Hong Kong. Another of their priorities seemed to be to arrange the direct evacuation of a number of family reunification cases from Ho Chi Minh City to the FRG.

CONFIDENTIAL

13.