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these, 77 had come to the US.
This year they had pressed Han Van
Lau for access by ICRC and had submitted 2,000 names. About 100 re-education camp inmates were now being released per month and they could apply for Orderly Departure.
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11. Reverting to the way forward after Honolulu, Mr Hartland-Swann
asked the Americans how they were going to include ASEAN in the
process. Mr Funseth said that under the 1980 Refugee Act they had to keep refugee immigration to manageable levels and would have to
consult Congress on levels above 50,000 per annum worldwide. So far
they had only given ASEAN an assurance that they would 'continue
to play a leading role''. They also recognised the importance of
pursuing the possibility of repatriation as a way of reassuring
ASEAN. There was no real consensus yet on involving ASEAN in
discussions with resettlement states but the Canadians had said that
the next Ministerial meeting would have to include ASEAN. So the
next post Honolulu meeting would probably be in Geneva at Permanent
Representative level. We should have to be careful however, to avoid having too many meetings without ASEAN or it would make them
nervous. The US had not yet responded to the Paper put forward by
UNIICR at the beginning of August (and considered at Honolulu). They
saw no problems in it for the US but were still unsure about how the
ASEAN's position could be squared since all the evidence from Thailand
(they continue to transport water to all refugee camps rather than
allow refugees to dig wells) suggested that they would be most
reluctant to contemplate any form of resettlement in the region.
12. Turning briefly to the problem of Sir Robert Jackson's position
as UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Cambodia Relief,
Mr Funseth said that they were concerned at the lack of consultation
with donors in advance of the administrative decision, which appeared
to have been made in New York, to downgrade Sir Robert's post. They
would express their concern at the next donors' meeting. He pointed
out that the US Government had been in the habit of topping up the
funding of Special UN Appeals of this kind from the surplus of their
resettlement budget. This was likely to be much smaller in future,
and they had told the Secretariat that they should no longer assume
that the US would be able to make up every shortfall.
13. On the UNIICR/Royal Thai Navy Anti-Piracy Programme, Mr Funseth said that the report of the Experts Assessment Team was sound and
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