TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 29

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in character and thus outside the humanitarian mandate of UNHCR.

Government simply does not accept that kind of obscurantist

My

nonsense.

It needs clearly to be recognised that helping refugees voluntarily

to return to their homeland is a humanitarian act enjoined on UNHCR

by its very Statute of Office. It should be seen as no more political or les

humanitarian than the representations that UNHCR is compelled to make

to Governments to achieve resettlement of refugees or local integration

or indeed, to extend them legal protection under the United Nations

Convention.

Mr Chairman the Executive Committee is a body in which interested

and participating governments show their commitment to help and to find

We expect that Lasting solutions to the plight of refugees. Most delegations will leave

Geneva with a renewed sense of their own task in these respects. The

Executive Committee is also a forum for member Governments to make known

to UNHCR their expectations of the Office in the conduct of its own affairs,

in the allocation of its priorities and, most importantly, in meeting

its basic aims. Accordingly, we urge the inscription of an item on durable

solutions as a permanent feature of the EXCOM agenda so as to give

the Office of UNHCR an opportunity to report each year to the Committee

on progress towards meeting that objective. The dialogue must

however be a two-way process. The High Commissioner must have the

confidence to speak fully and frankly in this forum on what the Office

auisimet expects from the international community in the process of negotiation and

conciliation to effect lasting solutions.

The Australian Government has committed itself to contribute

to the process of political solutions to ease the plight of refugees.

Australia will be placing more stress on humanitarian issues in formulating

and pursuing its foreign policy aims. Australia therefore expects and will