TNAG-1609-FCO40-22131-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 163

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But, as I said in this Council this time last year

and as my hon. Friend Mr. POON Chi-fai repeated in this debate,

the resettlement countries now have strict limitations on the

numbers and the sort of refugees they are prepared to take.

One of the reasons for the decline in resettlement so far this

here year is that far fewer arrivals/are qualifying under the criteria the resettlement countries apply to determine whom

they will take for resettlement. The majority of those now arriving are Northerners with no relatives in the resettlement

countries. As things are, there is little hope of their ever

being resettled. You, Sir, referred to a decline of 47 in

I am afraid to say resettlement compared with last year. In the intervening few weeks since your address that decline has fallen to over 50%.

per cent

1

per cent

But, as my hon. Friend Mr. Peter C WONG rightly

pointed out, as a place of first asylum we are bound by

international obligations to accept all Vietnamese boat people

as refugees. These obligations stem from the 1979 Geneva

Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees convened by the United

But

l.c. Nations. By the same token, the rest of the international

community has obligations arising from that conference to resettle all those accepted initially by places of first

asylum and also to seek durable solutions to the problem of

disorderly departures from Vietnam. The basic reason why the

resettlement countries are now having such difficulties in

meeting their obligations as far as refugees in Hong Kong are

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from

concerned is the problems they are encountering in respect of

a/se

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