TNAG-1276-FCO40-1626-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 113

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Amendment/Approval of Minutes of 29 October 1983 Meeting

The minutes for the meeting on 29 October 1983 were approved as circulated.

(2) Report on Selection Missions

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Finland: Mrs. H. Katila/Mr. J. Chuasai

The Finnish delegation arrived in November 1982 and selected a total of 54 refugees. This number was made up of mentally and physically handicapped cases who have been in camps for a long time. They departed Hong Kong in February 1983.

Denmark: Mr. J. Marcussen

The Danish delegation arrived before Christmas with a total of seven working days to complete a selection. A total of 207 refugees were accepted for resettlement in Denmark. Those selected were mainly long term cases with no resettlement prospects elsewhere.

Sweden: Mrs. U. Bohm

The Swedish delegation arrived in March 1983. They had three weeks to make a selection of 205 refugees from Hong Kong and 60 from Macau. The criteria included old cases who had been refused resettlement elsewhere and were ethnic Chinese and to some extent handicapped cases. Mr. Boe, I.C.M., confirmed that those accepted will be departing from Hong Kong from 17 April 1983 in groups of 20-30 people.

Resettlement Status to Other Countries

U.S.A.

Mr. Finnegan informed the meeting that on instructions from Washington a major change has been put into operation in the selection criteria for the U.S.A., RPC refusals are to be given a second opportunity; approximately 615 individuals are to be considered, the bulk of which are ethnic Chinese. Mr. Finnegan also emphasized that refugees who have relatives in China should be submitted to China first and the outcome of this should be annotated on UNHCR's dossiers. Mr. Cummings stated that under this new procedure 100 refugees a month will be considered after the first batch of 200. It is hoped that 200 refugees will be able to be moved this month, however, due to the short notice of this new procedure it is felt that this may not be possible. "U.K. contaminated cases" with close relatives in the U.S. are also being considered within the criteria 2-5.

Mr. Larsen stated that JVA have been concentrating on new arrivals and that everyone eligible for the U.S. Programme who arrived up to the end of 1982 have been interviewed.

Following this briefing the following points were made:-

(a) Mr. Finnegan requested a breakdown of criteria for other resettlement countries to enable the U.S.A. to see how selections are made.

It was agreed that UNHCR would share this information with Mr. Finnegan.

(b) Mr. Leeks enquired if these new procedures would involve a change as far as refugee definition is concerned. Mr. Fortner replied that, in fact, this status is determined at the time the refugee is interviewed. However, the RPC refusals stand a better chance of being called refugees which might not be the case with some U.K. "tainted" cases.

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