TNAG-1527-FCO40-2091-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-general-1986 — Page 106

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duration. However, he does recognise that there are cases where, because of the long-standing nature of the emergency or, in ICRC's case, conflict, the movement must get drawn into lengthy operations and that in these cases there is some logic in promoting self-sufficiency projects so as to alleviate the problems of the victim population (and, in the case of mass flows of refugees, the host population). But he was most critical of those national societies which seem to be eager to get involved in major capital projects which have next to nothing to do with emergency relief and would be far better done by those organisations mandated to carry out such projects. Here he cited the Scandinavian societies which were undertaking dam-building and afforrestation projects in East Afirca. Ile got even angrier when these societies then abused the Red Cross emblem by plastering it all over these projects which had nothing to do with the Red Cross's mandate, so devaluing the neutrality and meaning of the emblem.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

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9. First I called on Mr Cooper, who had recently visited Hong Kong. discussed in general terms the problem of refugees in south east Asia and the general problems of resettelment. He emphasised that Hong Kong was not alone in its problems and suggested that far from being ignored, as the Hong Kong government liked to claim, Hong Kong was the only country in the region that was managing to reduce its refugees population. He also said that there now seemed to be evidence that the closed camp policy in Hong Kong was resulting in larger numbers of arrivals in the Philippines. He did not, however, know if the name lists had been checked to see if the new arrivals in the Philippines had in fact come from Hong Kong or direct from their country of origin. Even so, he claimed that the word may have filtered back to the countries of origin with the result that the refugees were now making the more hazardous trip direct to the Philippines instead of stopping off at Hong Kong.

10.

That said he recognised the reasons for the Hong Kong government's policy and was appreciative of the initiative they had taken over allowing another 250 of the longest stayers to settle permanently in the colony. But again he had some mild criticism of the fact that these places were reserved for ethnic Chinese. While he saw that this was sensible in the Hong Kong context he thought that it might set a dangerous precedent for other resettlement countries which might then limit their places to those refugees from ethnic groups already established in their country. Even so, he did think that this initiative would help persuade other resettlement countries to increase their offers of places for refugees from Hong Kong.

11. He had much more unqualified praise for the Executive Council's decision to agree to establish a RASRO transit centre. He thought the size and the six month transit period were particularly generous. He explained the reasons for establishing the centre as follows:

(a) it would allow ships captains to disembark the refugees sooner than would otherwise be possible and thereby would encourage them to pick up refugees from the high seas;

(b) it allowed the resettlement country time to make the required medical checks before onward travel;