TNAG-1535-FCO40-2099-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation-1986 — Page 26

E.R.

2.

people to leave.

Taking the Vietnamese example, there was no point simply in removing people from the camps on one hand if on the other no steps were taken to discourage the movement of new refugees into those camps.

3.

4.

In discussion M Hocke made the following further points:

(i)

(ii)

there had been a major and largely successful programme of resettling Vietnamese refugees. Only some 150,000 were left, against the

1.2 million who had been resettled. If there was to be any repatriation of those who remained then the UNHCR needed not only to have the agreement of the refugees concerned but also to know what aid would be available to help them re-establish themselves in their home country. This was a further indication of the need to develop a global approach if effective solutions were to be found. He would like to see a situation where it gradually became possible to explore the conditions under which people could be repatriated to Vietnam. That discussion might start if the Vietnamese Government received a clear message from the outside world;

he recognised that receiving countries had to take due account of domestic political factors. He did not believe, however, that all the present asylum seekers would necessarily wish to remain in the receiving countries for the rest of their lives. A temporary state of refugee need not therefore be regarded as a final state. Under the definition in the UN Convention European Governments accepted between 5 and 10% of asylum seekers, and a real problem was how to handle those who were rejected. The idea of temporary asylum might help, and he hoped it would be possible to explore this idea further. He was also anxious to make a distinction between those who fled from violence and economic refugees. The reality was that 'people would flee from violence and he

recognised there was a problem for European countries in determining how to handle people who did so.

In discussion the Home Secretary made the following further points. Countries and the UNHCR should consider how further outflows of refugees might be stopped. Thought could be given to how to act collectively to that end. This was the key to the problem of Vietnamese refugees in the camps. The domestic situation in the UK and other European countries had changed. concept of the European refugee which had lain behind the UN Convention was very different from the refugee problem which people now perceived. In the 1940s there had been an

The

/understanding