Geneva Refugee Talks Set for Next Week
U.N. officials said Wednesday that a meeting on the problem of Vietnamese “boat people” in Hong Kong will be held in Geneva next Tuesday and Wednesday after several postponements.
The talks among the countries most involved were organized by the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Thorvajd Stoltenberg of Norway.
An international conference last year agreed that there should be no forced repatriation of boat people. The British government, however, has said that most of the 50,000 Vietnamese in Hong Kong are “economic refugees.” An initial forced repatriation of 51 of the boat people to Vietnam led to protests, in particular from the United States, France and the U.N. commissioner’s office.
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