TNAG-1425-FCO40-1908-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-general-1985 — Page 252

advised that Hong Kong should press for this.

ii)

In March 1984 officials from the Department of Foreign

Affairs and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs said

that their ministers would want to see a new quot a from the UK

however small before showing a willingness to consider increasing

significantly the Australian off-take from Hong Kong.

-

United States

i)

Officials of the US Bureau of Refugee Programmes (State

Department) told FCO officials in January 1984 that an increasingly

large number of refugees in Hong Kong did not meet US criteria. The

Hong Kong refugee problem should be "internationalised" with the UK

Government taking the lead. It would be hard for the US to raise

their refugee quotas if others did not.

ii)

Ambassador Douglas (US Coordinator for Refugee Affairs) said

at a meeting of resettlement countries in Geneva in July 1984 that

the US had taken almost all the refugees they could from Hong Kong

under their present rules, and that in the absence of a UK quota

they were not prepared to ask Congress amend their regulations

concerning off-take from Hong Kong.

UNHCR

i)

In March 1984 the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees told

the UK mission in Geneva that it had long been the case that third

countries had insisted that it would be easier for them to accept

refugees from Hong Kong if the UK would show the way. He mentioned

the US administration and the Canadian Government as having recently

indicated that they would not do much more for Hong Kong unless HMG

first accepted at least some Vietnamese refugees from there. (The

Canadians also felt that the EC as a whole should do more to help

Hong Kong). The Deputy High Commissioner said that unless the UK

took further quota he doubted whether UNHCR

a

would be able to

persuade others to take any significant numbers.

an

ii)

At meeting with

a

FCO Minister in March 1984

Moussalli, UNHCR Director for Protection, suggested that the UK

refusal to take

refugees was more

the reason

decline for the

Mr

>

in

/resettlement