UN and Vietnam pressured to end refugee saga

UN and Vietnam pressured to end refugee saga

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): A global meeting on Indochinese refugees yesterday called on the United Nations and Vietnam to speed up repatriation of 40,000 Vietnamese still languishing in refugee camps in Asia, with forced return debated as a last resort.

The two-day conference of 30 nations was called to discuss the UN's 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), which sets the return for all 40,000 non-refugees -- who do not qualify for political asylum in third countries -- by the end of the year.

China and Malaysia have complained about the slow progress of repatriation, and the conference agreed, according to a draft communique obtained by AFP.

"Although six years had lapsed since the adoption of the CPA, the remaining population in the camps in the region continues to be a burden both to first asylum countries and also to the international community as a whole," the statement said.

It called for repatriation of up to 1,800 people a month. Asylum countries would first collect personal information on the remaining non-refugees and send it to Hanoi by May 1. The Vietnamese government would then determine if the refugees were returning home voluntarily and flight arrangements would be made.

Some 71,000 Vietnamese have returned home since the beginning of the CPA and the UNHCR found no evidence that any of them had suffered ill-treatment on their return, the statement said.

The meeting in Kuala Lumpur was a preparatory meeting to the CPA Steering Committee, which is expected to meet in Geneva next month to endorse the Kuala Lumpur communique.

Officials said the UN was under increasing pressure to keep the deadline.

"UNHCR is very determined now to fulfill the CPA," said Cheng Shoudan, China's representative to the meeting, who sounded a warning to Vietnam a day earlier that it had to help the world body meet the target.

Cheng, among some 70 delegates to the meeting, had warned Hanoi that China planned to withdraw Hong Kong's status as a port of first asylum for Vietnamese boat people once Beijing took over the territory in 1997.

Host country Malaysia joined China in voicing what observers noted as growing impatience among Asian countries with non- refugees who refused to return home, resulting in forced repatriation appearing as a possible solution to the problem.

"Malaysia is deeply concerned about the slow progress in the departure of the non-refugees under the CPA program," said Jaafar Ismail, secretary of the Malaysian National Security. "Our experience in this field has not been very encouraging."

More than a quarter million Vietnamese boat people landed in Malaysia in the last two decades and almost all have been resettled in third countries, with some 5,000 awaiting repatriation.

Other delegates also felt UNHCR should cut red tape and speed up the return of remaining non-refugees.

"We have to work out procedures to follow if the voluntary repatriation program fails and they have to be forcibly repatriated," said a delegate, who asked not to be identified.

UNHCR chief for Asia and Oceania, Werner Blatter, said the Kuala Lumpur conference had made progress.

"We have had very good discussions and we're reviewing the whole draft on the CPA paragraph by paragraph," Blatter said. "At the end of this meeting, we'll be well prepared for the Geneva meeting."