TNAG-0898-FCO40-1108-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 171

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As a result of the initiatives taken at the Geneva

meeting on Indochinese refugees in July, the immediate

refugee situation in Southeast Asia is fortunately somewhat

less desperate and unstable. Vietnam has apparently used

its domestic authority to curb a great part of its refugee

exodus. With declining arrival rates and accelerated

departure rates for resettlement countries, the refugee

population has been reduced somewhat, and new arrivals are

generally receiving asylum.

Despite this hiatus, however, the underlying problems

remain volatile. The clear potential for a return to a

crisis situation makes it imperative to move ahead with the

commitments we have already made, and indeed to look for

longer term solutions. Let me outline some of our concerns

about the situation, as well as steps we have taken since

the Geneva meeting in July and our plans for future action.

The United States is concerned about several persistent

and potentially troublesome problems. First, despite the

recent decrease in new arrivals and increase in departures

for resettlement countries, the total number of refugees

in Southeast Asia remains dangerously high. The presence

of large refugee populations continues to strain the resources

of countries of first asylum. In the past, this has led,

as we all know too well, to erosion of the principles of first

asylum and loss of lives of refugees turned back across land

borders or pushed back out to sea. It is encouraging that

first asylum generally seems to have been restored, although

we particularly deplore that a few have been pushed back.

Furthermore, we have no guarantee that the arrival rates