TNAG-1903-FCO40-2705-Hong-Kong-cabinet-meetings-on-Vietnamese-refugees-1990 — Page 91

CONFIDENTIAL

returning to Vietnam.

The Americans have agreed to put pressure on

the UNHCR to do this during their counselling of boat people.

STRATEGY FOR SC3

11. Our objective should be to create a climate of opinion in

which it can be accepted that the orderly return of all

non-refugees, whether on a voluntary or non-voluntary basis, should

now proceed. We would make it clear that the voluntary programme

would not be abandoned. We can argue that the voluntary programme

has been given every chance to work, and that this should continue.

But although the number of volunteers is increasing, they are

clearly not going to match the number of those screened out, all of

whom will need to be repatriated.

12. The work programme of the Steering Committee (see paragraph above) includes a clear remit to examine and adopt by October 1989 such additional measures as may be called for to implement paragraph

12 of the CPA. At the second meeting of the Steering Committee,

held in Bangkok in July, these additional measures were further

defined. The Committee decided that such measures should include

(a)

the phased, orderly and monitored return and reintegration in safety and dignity of all those determined not to be refugees,

under the good offices of UNHCR.

(b) a regional holding centre of the kind envisaged in paragraph

14 of the CPA.

Building on this foundation, we should press for agreement to the

proposition that, in the absence of any possibility of a regional

holding centre being established, the only possible alternative

measure must be involuntary repatriation. If we achieve that, we

could plausibly argue when the first involuntary return from Hong

Kong takes place that we have merely anticipated implementation of

the CPA approach by a few months, which, given Hong Kong's special

circumstances (screening introduced more than a year before other

VIMAAE5

CONFIDENTIAL