UNITED NATIONS
GH COMMISSIONER
FOR REFUGEES
Office of the Chargé de Mission
Telephones: 3-7809271-4
Telegrams: HICOMREF HONG KONG Telex: 34980 UNHOR HX Fax: (852) 3-7705504
NATIONS UNIES
HAUT COMMISSARIAT POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS
Bureau du Chargé de Mission
P.Ó. Box 73887 Kowloon Central Post Office Hong Kong
AD/1010
10 May 1990
elicit
Dear Alistair
As you know, UNHCR has during the past months been extremely concerned about the actual nature and extent of tensions and violence in the detention centres for Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong, and particularly about a potential worsening of the situation. Our Office has. in this context, repeatedly sought to identify ways and means of coping with this most difficult problem, in close consultation with the Government of Hong Kong at all levels. On Friday,
On Friday, 27 April 1990 the UNHCR Chief of Mission went personally to Whitehead with Mr. Raymond Lai, the Assistant Commissioner of the Correctional Services Department, to address Hut Leaders in all the most difficult sections of that centre, where the problems are most acute, in an effort to dissuade centre residents from staging a large scale "breakout" of which we had received prior indications.
It is UNHCR's view that efforts to come to grips with this most serious problem cannot succeed without a thorough attempt to illicit the cooperation of the camp population itself. We do not underestimate the dangers posed by large numbers of home made weapons in the camps, nor those associated with "breakouts" of armed asylum seekers. On the contrary. our experience and that of voluntary agencies working in the detention centres converges fully on the point I have mentioned: failure to make the utmost effort to illicit cooperation of the camp population itself can only exacerbate what is probably the most serious problem we face today.
But
The Hon. A. P. Asprey, Secretary for Security, Government Secretariat. Lower Albert Road, Hong Kong.
.../2
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.