TNAG-1531-FCO40-2095-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-general-1987 — Page 10

No, I am not a psychologist or

psychiatrist but I think common sense would certainly tell that one has to be very watchful and careful that the border wouldn't be passed beyond which the problem might increase and become intractable rather than to be solved.

QUESTION:

(By ?) Once again on the subject

of repatriation, is the UNHRC coming under pressure from countries of first asylum or elsewhere to pursue this option more strenuously, and will this be a subject of special interest at the executive

committee meeting?

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MR HOCKE:

I don't know if the problem is a

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problem coming under pressure or not. The real problem in my view

is twofold. One, as

as a permanent policy and a permanent effort we have to do whatever we can to find out if repatriation or when ever repatriation can work. This being said, I indicated also before that repatriation is most of the time linked to a broader settlement and linked to creating the condition where people who fled violence, persecution, a combination of factors including some natural ones take what happened in '84-'85 in Ethiopia where a combination of hostilities in some of the provinces and draught sent to Suden hundreds of thousands of people precisely to find out when the conditions are right for the people to go back. Now you will, I hope, agree with me that this has much more to do with politics and effort to be made by government at the political level, precisely to reach the point where these agreements as a consequence will permit refugees to go back. So I think it would not be enough for governments to try to pressure UNHCR in securing repatriation if at the same time they themselves as political entities will do the necessary effort to create the condition where just peace would return to a country or natural or normal condition would prevail for people to consider to going home voluntarily.

Yes?

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QUESTION:

(by ?)

Could you please clarify this.

You say the UNHCR is against closed camps and I asked you about the

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