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b)
d)
e)
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former members of the Republic of (South) Vietnam Armed Forces, or Government. Even where these people have not been in a Re-education Camp or have been released from one for some time, may well be automatically at the bottom of the list.
Those who have skills too valuable to lose e.g. doctors, scientists, engineers, technicians.
Those newly released from Re-eduation Camps (and category (b) above may even then be outside this group in Vietnamese eyes). They must register with a local People's Committee (PC) having been contin- uously resident in that PC's area for a year at least. Even then the PC may choose to do nothing for some time and there is little the MFA ODP Working Group (ODP-WG) can do to bring pressure to bear. Once registered they can apply for a exit visa but this is subject to Ministry of the Interior approval and can itself be long delayed. Again neither we/UNHCR nor ODP-WG can bring any real influence to bear.
Relatives still in Vietnam of those who left illegally.
It is almost redundant to say that an enquiry from a British MP cuts no ice at all with the Vietnamese (though we, of course, understand such enquiries should be properly looked at and answered hence this letter which will, I hope, help you to deal with such queries promptly and more easily)
CURRENT ODP
6. We and most of our colleagues in other reception countries' missions in Hanoi, are of course worried by the present trend of lower numbers, particularly after the Vietnamese undertook at July 1984 Geneva Conference to have all pre-summer 1984 cases cleared by October 1985. We and UNHCR take every chance we get to remind the Vietnamese of this. But we are not the worst case by any means (see Annexe A). The French too have suffered: though their figures have not dropped like ours, those who are receiving exit visas under French ODP are ethnic Chinese/Vietnamese. The French are battling with this, so far without success.
7.
Hanoi/Northern Vietnam departures are increasing as have southern provincial departures outside HCMC and Dong Nai (see Annex B).
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