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senior official in the Australian Dept of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (and previously UNHCR Co-Ordinator for SE Asia) who had just arrived from talks (?) in Hanoi. I was left finally with impression that while the outcome of the 11 October discussions were much in doubt, those present at the lunch regarded our approach as a positive and welcome move.
the
There is little more we can do than await the outcome of IGC discussion. UKMIS and Mr Woodhouse should hear more early this
week.
7. Two other developments are worth comment:
It
(a) On 9 October Mr Woodhouse made an intervention (like previous HKG representatives before him) during the Assistance debate. A copy of his statement (cleared by me and then by UKMIS) is attached. I think it went as far as t sensibly could to suggest alternatives (unspecified) to resettlement. provoked one immediate response. A member of the Chinese delegation came over to ask me what alternatives we had in mind. I explained our concern about Hong Kong and SE Asia, and our lack of preconceived ideas. The Chinese delegate said she understood there was some sort of consultative committee in Geneva: I said that if so, we were not part of it. She asked if we saw a new international conference as one step to a solution: I did not rule this out, but this would depend on whether the international community would respond now to the problem as it did in 1979. All rather inconclusive: she too apparently had no firm views, and mentioned only China's interest in the problem from an asylum/resettlement viewpoint. She departed with a copy
of the HKG statement.
(b) On 8 October Miss Walker arranged for me and Mr Woodhouse to meet the Head of UNHCR's Resettlement Section (Mr Issaka) and his two assistants Messrs Hansson and Cooper. Miss Walker is kindly doing a fuller note of this discussion, but the following points are briefly noted now:
(i) UNHCR are concerned that the programme that Hong Kong have undertaken to take 250 from the camps is not going well (40 accepted so far this year!). There are plainly differences locally between HKG and UNHCR on how refugees should be "encouraged" to accept local integration: in our discussion on 8 October, both parties agreed to try harder. It is clearly important that resettlement countries should not be able to challenge Hong Kong's bona fides in fulfilling this commitment.
(ii) UNHCR do not regard Hong Kong's problems in 1986 (and by extension 1987) as being as pressing as they were in 1985. They see Malaysia's caseload as the main problem for next year: and considerable effort will be needed to keep resettlement momentum going for Hong Kong.
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