major programme of reintegration assistance for VBP
returning to Vietnam. We have subsequently lifted our objection to the resumption of official EC/Vietnam relations.
6. On 14 September 1990 the UN Secretary General appointed the then UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Thorvald Stoltenberg, Special Representative with responsibility for the VBP problem, and extended his mandate to permit UNHCR involvement in the repatriation of non-volunteers, and their monitoring in Vietnam (Stoltenberg resigned on 2 November to rejoin the Norwegian Government and his successor has yet to be named). In talks between officials from UK, Hong Kong and UNHCR with the Vietnamese in Hanoi, a Joint Statement was agreed on 21 September providing for simplified and accelerated procedures for the return of volunteers from Hong Kong to Vietnam, and introducing new procedures for the return of non-volunteer VBP who do not object to return,
under UNHCR supervision. It remains to be seen whether this agreement can offer progress towards a comprehensive and durable solution to the VBP problem. The first 23 non-volunteers returned under the new procedures on 1 December, and it is hoped that the programme will gain.
momentum.
In
7. Two cases of litigation are pending in Hong Kong. the first, the High Court awarded a writ of habeas corpus to 111 (ie one hundred and eleven) people who had arrived in Hong Kong and who did not wish to claim asylum there, but whose boat had proved unseaworthy for any onward voyage. The Hong Kong Government is considering appealing the judgement while the UNHCR have used their mandate to declare all 111 as refugees. In the second, nine boat people who have been determined by the screening process not to be refugees are challenging the process by means of judicial review.
PJZAUZ/3
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