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from its own funds when the UNHCR Anti-Piracy Programme budget funds had been delayed. Finally, Thailand reminded EXCOM members that the Anti-Piracy Programme was an interim measure: the "durable solution" to the problem was to attack the root cause in Hanoi through the Orderly Departure Programme.
6. In answer to the query in our statement, Mr Vieira de Mello, UNHCR's Secretary to EXCOM, speaking on behalf of the High Commissioner, said that the increase in "missing" persons was due to the increased violence on the high seas, despite the efforts of the Anti-Piracy Programme of the Royal Thai Navy.
7. I discussed our queries further with Mr Mouchet, UNHCR's Desk Officer for Thailand, on 25 June. He explained that the figures we quoted of 86 "missing" in 1984 and 219 in 1985 included persons abducted, but not recovered, and persons missing, presumed dead. The statistics for early 1985 were influenced by two rammings, one of which involved a boat containing
60 refugees of whom 58 died. In other words, the figure of 91 "missing" people in early 1985 included 60 in one incident.
8.
It is difficult to draw UNHCR on the question of how long they see the Anti-Piracy Programme continuing. Mr Mouchet maintains that, while continuation of the scheme obviously depends on donor governments, UNHCR consider it should continue as long as the problem exists.
9. Paragraphs 12 and 18 of the Assessment Team's report refer to the problem caused by the fact that many attacks take place outside Thailand's territorial waters. Mr Mouchet said that, while patrolling was done on the high seas (but not in other countries' territorial waters), the emphasis of the Anti-Piracy Programme had now been shifted from patrolling to land-based operations (as recommended by the Assessment Team), with very good cooperation from the Marine and Land Police.
Orderly Departure Programme
10. At the 5 June Open House, the Bureau confirmed that, at the end of 1985, the Vietnamese Government had decided to stop the interviews which were being held under the auspices of UNHCR by the US Government on the grounds that there was a large backlog of persons interviewed whose cases were still pending. No more interviews were to be conducted until the backlog had been cleared. Since then UNHCR had been trying to resolve the issue: two further technical meetings had taken place and a possible third technical meeting would take place "in the not too distant future" which might be able to break the deadlock.
11. At the 13 June meeting UNHCR were unable, through lack of
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