UNHCR/HQ rejected Bangkok's proposal and Bangkok in turn proposed the closure of Nong Kai (the main Lao camp) and also restrictions in the provision of supplies and reduction in the level of treatment accorded to new arrivals in the other Lao camps. According to McNamara it was in
this connection that UNHCR first used the term "humane deterrence": this term was Later endorsed first by the US Government and then (according to McNamara) connection with Hong Kong by the British Government. During the course of 1981 this new Thai policy was extended to all the camps for Lao lowland arrivals: the main features were withdrawal of eligibility for resettlement, austere camp Conditions, and restrictions on
These "Closed camps" were also introduced for Vietnamese arrivals in Thailand and in April 1982 were extended to camps for Lao hill tribe arrivals.
in
UNHCR access.
Hong Kong: On of a "closed camp" policy. The Secretary for Security announced a policy to discourage departures from Vietnam, explaining that this was in part a response to a call from the US Government (at this point McNamara pointed to public congressional hearings in late-1981 where a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US State Department's Refugee Bureau had called for a policy of humane deterrence throughout the region; he also referred to pressure on
17 June 1982 HKG announced the introduction
Hong Kong in 1981/82 in bilateral contacts with the US
authorities).
McNamara summarised briefly Hong Kong's refugee policy since 1979 pointing out that although Hong Kong's problem had been well publicised by Lord
Lord Carrington. at the 1979 Geneva Conference, Hong Kong felt that it had been subsequently been benalised on account of the conspicuously better treatment it afforded new arrivals.
In the years between 1979 and 1982 domestic concern grew over the increasing length of stay of new arrivals, the falling resettlement rate, riots in certain of the ppen camps, tensions between the local Chinese and increasingly mainly Vietnamese arrivals, and the contradiction between the Government's policy on Vietnamese arrivals and its policy on Chinese illegal immigration. McNamara also noted that Hong
that Hong Kong
had between 1979 and 1982 followed a unique open camp policy in the region, that Hong Kong's arrival rate had been unique in terms of the high proportion of arrivals from northern and Central Vietnam, and the uniqueness of Hong Kong in terms of its osition as a UK responsibility rather than an independent state ike the other places of first asylum in the region. McNamara characterised Hong Kong's new policy as represented by camps that vere austere, prison-like, very restricted in terms of contact with the outside world, and
providing limited resettlement pportunities for new arrivals.
McNamara noted that
Common Features: At this point generally throughout the region treatment of new arrivals had Been austere. He pointed to Singapore's "blockade" since 1978, periodic Malaysian expulsions
camps, and the periodic Thai "hard line". He noted that these policies had encountered very little UNHCR resistance from the start,
and austere Malaysian
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