CONFIDENTIAL
United Kingdom Mission
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P K Williams Esq
United Nations Department Foreign and Commonwealth offi LONDON SWK 243/13.
Hal S.VIEN REGISTRY
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Date
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REFUGEES: HONOLULU GROUP
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29 December 1986
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1. You sent us a copy of your letter of 28 November to Nigel Wenban-Smith in Ottawa.
2. As you know, after exerting considerable pressure on UNHCR, we finally extracted a copy of the informal paper which Jean-Pierre Hocké, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, had passed to the Honolulu Group in the margins of the autumn UNHCR Executive Committee (UKMIS Geneva telegram No 680). This paper will give you some insight into Hocké's thinking at that time.
I understand that he is now reflecting on the comments made by the Honolulu Group representatives when he met them in October and that a revised version of his paper will be prepared shortly.
3. You mention in your letter to Nigel Wenban-Smith that you have decided not to continue to press for membership of the Honolulu Group (in the face of resistance from some of its members), but to explore the possibility of persuading the High Commissioner "to convene (a series) of meeting(s) on general refugee issues at which we could push our Hong Kong (and wider South East Asian) concerns". We are not quite sure what you have in mind here. There is likely to be an "open house" organised by UNHCR in late January at which questions of interest to members of the Executive Committee could be raised. The informal Executive Committee meeting itself, originally planned for January, may not now take place until late March and there may be a further "open house" in the summer. But these scarcely seem suitable occasions for discussing a coherent future strategy for dealing with the problem of Vietnamese refugees.
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