Mr. President. this past weekend the United Nations concluded an extraordinarily important international conference in Geneva called by Secretary General Kurt Waldheimto focus international attention on the escalating refugee crisis in Southeast Asia. After 2 days of intensive diplomatic activity. and after a great deal of preparatory work by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. the meeting concluded on Saturday and. by all accounts. has been judged a major success. For the first time. all aspects of the Indochinese refugee problem have been considered. and important new steps have been taken to deal with it. In fact. the meeting served as the catalyst for redoubling the worlds efforts to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of refugees throughout Southeast Asia. Because the Judiciary Committee has favorably acted upon legislation relating to our countrys ability to respond to such refugee crisesand because the bill will soon be before the Senatethe committee dispatched to Geneva staff members of both the majority and minority staff to observe the work of this important conference. From the preliminary report I have received. it is clear that the Geneva meeting has gone a long way toward meeting the immediate relief and resettlement needs of Indochinese refugees. as well as setting the stage for new diplomatic efforts to provide alternatives to forcing tens of thousands of refugees to flee by leaky boats. with great loss of human life. It appears that many of the 60 nations represented at the Geneva conference have responded to the call of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for countries to double the number of refugee resettlement opportunities over the coming year. In some cases. such as Canada. they more than doubled their resettlement offers. and countries that had never responded before came forward. Clearly.
Keywords matched
Refugees refugee refugees