TNAG-1277-FCO40-1627-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 179

CONFIDENTIAL

<<

A

B

C D

9

In the margins of UNHCR's Executive Committee in October, Purcell

of the State Department briefed UKMIS Geneva on the Honolulu meeting.

Consensus was that no single policy could remove the refugee burden but major resettlement states (Canada, Australia, USA - France was

absent) would sustain current levels of offtake while looking at

alternatives particularly repatriations and regional settlement.

Problems are that voluntary repatriations will be limited, forcible

repatriations out of the question short of a major change in Vietnamese

Government attitudes. Regional integration or settlement will be hard

to sell to first asylum states: the agreement at Geneva in July 1979

was that the region would offer first asylum in return for resettlement

in third countries. It will be hard to sell them any form of settlement

in the region. Hong Kong could certainly take no more than the 14,000

already there. At least substantial funding would be needed to make

this attractive to any of them.

10 A further meeting of resettlement states in Geneva proposed

consultations there (without formal UNHCR participation) to discuss

reactions to this summer's set of UNHCR's suggestions (which also cover

repatriation and regional self-sufficiency schemes''). It would be

useful if Funseth could confirm that US are happy for this group to pave the way for any ''Honolulu II''

''Honolulu II'', and suggest how and

when to include ASEAN states too. Unless Geneva talks prepare detailed

proposals for a follow-up conference to agree, we suspect that

attendance by Ministers would be hard to justify and would prefer

senior officials. But Douglas' Honolulu exercise is now regarded as

being partly for domestic sonsumption and he may be under similar

pressures next year to show that he is concerting refugee policy at

Ministerial level. So far only Tokyo has been mentioned as a possible

venue. Both France and FRG as well as ourselves are likely to be asked.

3

CONFIDENTIAL

/11 There