TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 202

ern- 1 in

E/CN.4/1503

Annex II page 19

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"refugees", "refugees", "dis-

53. The asylum seekers, variously termed placed persons", "illegal immigrants", "boat people", "border crossers" and "expellees", of many different ethnic and occupational backgrounds, have been numbered in hundreds of thousands, have been accommodated in refugee camps, detention centres, government dockyards, holding centres, transit centres, hostels and, since 1980, temporarily in "refugee processing centres" established especially in the Philippines and Indonesia. The Foreign Ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), at their Twelfth Ministerial Meeting in Bali on 30 June 1979, issued a strongly-worded communiqué mostly relating to the arrival of Indo-Chinese:

concern

"The Foreign Ministers expressed grave over the deluge of illegal immigrants/displaced persons (refugees) from

from Indochina which has reached crisis proportions and has caused severe political, socio-economic and security problems in ASEAN countries. and will have a destabilising effect on the region. (They) stressed that ASEAN countries which had borne a heavy burden of providing temporary shelter to the illegal immigrants/displaced persons (refugees) have reached the limit of their endurance and have decided they would not accept any new arrivals. They reiterated the decision of ASEAN countries to take

take firm and effective measures to prevent further inflow (and) would send out the illegal

the illegal immigrants/displaced persons (refugees) in

in ther existing camps should they not be accepted by resettlement countries or by the respective Indochinese countries within a reasonable time frame.

(They) agreed that

that in the efforts at international level to find a solution, emphasis should be given to

to solving the problem at

source.

...

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The following paragraphs sketch the background to the mass exodus from each of the countries of the Indo-Chinese peninsula: Kampuchea, Laos and Viet Nam.

54.