TNAG-1276-FCO40-1626-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 162

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CONFIDENTIAL

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FILE NOTE

Reference

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REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT ) [ter

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Following HE's conversation with the High Commissioner

for Refugees on 20 July, Mr Hartling asked the Head of UNHCR's Resettlement Section to brief HE on the current . resettlement position in respect of South East Asian refugees.

2. Mr Klauss Feldmann called on 27 July and opened by talking about the Honolulu Conference. He saw the session as an opportunity for. the major resettlement countries to consider new approaches to the Vietnam refugee problem. Speaking frankly and confidentially he said that, following a recent visit to Washington, he was convinced that Eugene Douglas, the US refugee supremo, believed that refugees were being used as a tactic to destabilise the US.

of. this the US looked at refugee problems in a political way in contrast to the UNHCR whose approach was solely humanitarian. But the US also used refugees to gain political brownie points. They want the constant flow of people leaving Vietnam to be maintained in order to keep world opinion against the regime there. But their interest in seeing this continual flow has not been matched by a permanent interest in resettling Vietnamese refugees. They had walked away from the problem by refusing to accept those whom they considered to be economic migrants. But resettlement was the only avenue open to these people owing to the lack of progress on repatriation and the unwillingness of the countries in the area to let them stay.

3. The US had 6 criteria for processing refugee applications, but were at present only using 5. They had even asked UNHCR to deal with those qualifying under the sixth category. UNHCR's reply was that it was not appropriate for the US to define them as non-refugees and then ask UNHCR to resettle them. (Feldmann said that he had told the Americans that the organisation had not yet become the USHCR!) But the US approach continued to be very important for the rest of the resettlement countries. If the US took large numbers, the others would increase their quotas. But a smaller US intake would produce fewer places all round. This year the US has a programme to take 64,000 Vietnamese, but intend to take far less. This figure is only a ceiling and the US authorities have said that they do not intend to reach it. The Americans want to give up the Refugee Processing Centre (RPC) in Indonesia as there are so few refugees there now. On the question of moving other refugees to the RPCs he said that the American policy is that all the first asylum countries have a level of tolerance in the size of their camp populations. Only when the numbers became intolerable would the US re-plan their quota. But US political priorities were shifting.

CONFIDENTIAL

/ In 1979