TNAG-1893-FCO40-2687-Visit-by-Francis-Maude--Minister-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1989 — Page 34

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cannot provide a comprehensive solution to the problem. Our agreement of October 1988 with Vietnam was in fact a fudge, because

the Vietnamese made it clear that they were not prepared at that stage to take back non volunteers, while we insisted that this had

to be part of any "comprehensive arrangements". The subsequent

volunteer figures have borne this out : the numbers volunteering

have been small.

Second Geneva Conference on Indo Chinese Refugees

8.

Largely at the instigation of the ASEAN countries, a second Geneva Conference was held in June 1988. It achieved some very significant results and endorsed a Comprehensive Plan of Action to

resolve the problem. The key decisions were :

agreement to region wide screening of all boat people;

agreement that all those screened out should eventually go back (By the same token, the Conference sent a resounding message from the international community as a whole that those

screened out would not be resettled;

agreement to the resettlement within 3 years of all those

with refugee status.

However the Plan did not go as far as we would have liked on

repatriation. It stated that in the first instance every effort should be made to persuade boat people return voluntarily. It

was too vague about how and when alternatives to voluntary repatriation would be introduced.

9. At the Conference, the Vietnamese offered bilateral negotiations on repatriation, and Sir Geoffrey Howe took this up. A bilateral agreement was initialled, on 26 June. The agreement was endorsed at a meeting in London between Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nguyen

Co Thach on 28 June. The text of a minute on the modalities of

repatriation of the first group under the terms of the 26 June document were agreed in Hanoi on 1 August and await initialling.

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