TNAG-0971-FCO40-1190-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1980 — Page 199

E.R.

The developing role of BCAR

In response to these developments BCAR has had to make very considerable adjustments to its role and scale of operations. It has become, at least for

the time being, a large-scale operational organisation. This change has

required imagination, flexibility and hard work from those concerned and I

should like to pay my own tribute to the leadership of Kenneth Lee and

Nora Morley-Fletcher in the past year. I know myself from my own visits to

reception centres how well they have done. Sopley and Thorney Island have

received many visitors and I have heard from them, too, how impressed they

have been by the good work being done there. Dale de Haan and Sir Murray Maclehose,

in particular, have spoken with admiration of what they have seen of Thorney

Island as well as other agencies' centres.

Other refugee organisations

This, of course, is BCAR's day. But it would also be very appropriate on

this occasion for us to pay equal tribute to the work of the other voluntary agencies active in the Vietnamese refugee programme the Cckenden Venture

and the Save the Children Fund. These organisations have also had to make very

rapid adjustments to established patterns of operation in order to cope with

this emergency; and the demands made upon their dedicated and hardworking staff have also been very great. The involvement of these voluntary bodies

in the programme has ensured a variety of style and approach which has provided very useful diversity of experience although it would be idle

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to pretend that these differences have not caused the odd headache for

the Secretariat of the Joint Committee! Tribute is also due to the extremely valuable work in the reception centres of the WRVS and the Red Cross.

Partnership of Government, local authorities and the voluntary sector

The development of the Vietnamese programme so far illustrates very clearly the

principal features of the way this country responds to refugee emergencies. It

has been the policy of successive Governments to respond to each situation as it

arises and in the form best suited to the circumstances, I am convinced that

its own unique characteristics and our response has this is right. Each refugee situation has to be geared to these. The arrival of the Vietnamese, for example, presents problems, most of which differ in kind

or degree from those facing us at the time of the arrival of the Ugandan Asians

in 1973 or for that matter the Hungarians in 1956. It would be entirely

inappropriate to try and impose a uniform pattern on how each situation is dealt with or to imagine that one could set up permanent machinery to desi with a series of separate and unrelated situations.

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