The resettlement situation from Hong Kong
8. Following the Geneva Conference the Hong Kong Government have
been at pains, through diplomatic channels to urge those countries
offering increased resettlement opportunities to include a
proportion of refugees from Hong Kong in the numbers they have
agreed to take. It has been a source of acute embarrassment to
the Government that when these pressures have borne fruit, the
inadequacy of the local UNHCR office has on occasions thwarted
such plans. For this and other reasons relations between the
Hong Kong Government and UNHCR are not good.
9. At the time of our arrival in Hong Kong, senior officials from
UNHCR headquarters in Geneva were engaged in lengthy discussions with the Government, (the meetings were described by officials as "acrimonious"), which eventually resulted in an undertaking from UNHCR that from the first of September they would accept
responsibility for feeding and clothing all the refugees in
Hong Kong.
This agreement appears not to have been retrospective the Government has already spent 12 million pounds on the refugees so far this year.
10. But the greatest gap in UNHCR's management of the situation appears
to be in the all-important area of resettlement. Refugees are
not told which countries are offering resettlement nor anything
about those countries, some of which including the UK many
have never heard of. Consequently they are almost all under the
Canada and Australia are the only options open
to them. They tend to elect for resettlement in one or other of
these countries, not because of excessive choosiness, but largely
out of ignorance.
impression that USA,
. This situation is further exacerbated by UNHCR's apparent
willingness to treat resettlement as a paper exercise, an attitude
which resulted in considerable time- wasting when we started
interviewing. On our arrival we were presented with lists, drawn up by UNHCR, of some 4,000 people. These lists were compiled
without any regard for the refugees wishes, and indeed without
their knowledge. On many occasions interviews were completed
only for the refugee to tell us that he did not wish to go to the
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