840.48 Refugees/4669: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 14—12:30 p.m.]
7021. Reference third sentence of Embassy’s telegram 6616, October 1 and section numbered 7 of airgram A–1160, October 3 [2], 2 p.m.79 An appropriate question having been asked and answered in the House of Commons yesterday, a press communiqué is being released today at 5 p.m. Greenwich time by the Director of the Intergovernmental Committee in the form agreed to at the September 30 meeting of the Executive Committee. Effort is being made to assure attention by the press. The complete text follows:
“At the meeting held on August 4th last, the Executive Committee of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees agreed on recommendations involving the reorganization of the Committee as a whole and the extension of its scope and activities. These recommendations were submitted to the member Governments of the Committee and communicated to certain other Governments that were invited to join the Committee.
The following Governments are members of the Committee or have been invited to join:
Australia, Argentina Republic, Belgium, Bolivia, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, United States of America, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, Paraguay, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Salvador, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
As the recommendations have reached all the Governments concerned, it is now possible to make public the nature of the proposals.
Previous to the reorganization of the Committee, its activities were restricted to refugees from Germany and Austria and from the Sudeten areas. It is now proposed to extend the mandate so as to include, as far as practicable also those persons wherever they may be who, as a result of events in Europe, have had to leave, or may have to leave, their countries of residence, because of the danger to their lives or liberties on account of their race, religion or political beliefs.
It has been further recommended that with regard to persons coming within the extended mandate, the Executive Committee should be empowered by the member states to undertake negotiations with neutral or Allied states or with organizations, to take such steps as may be necessary to preserve, maintain and transport the refugees and to receive and disburse for the above purposes both public and private funds.
[Page 214]With regard to finance, the Executive Committee has recommended that the administrative expenses should be shared by all the member Governments. With regard to other expenditure, the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States of America have agreed subject to legislative consent to underwrite it jointly on the condition, first, that all projects which come within this offer shall be considered individually, and the two Governments consulted before a project is sanctioned or expenditure incurred thereon; and second, that when a clearer idea has been obtained of the money required for the efficient conduct of the Committee’s work under its new commitments, an invitation will be addressed to all the member Governments inviting them to contribute to this expenditure also, in accordance with their abilities and their interest in the humanitarian work of the Committee.
The responsibility for maintenance will not be retroactive and it is confidently expected that member Governments or voluntary organizations who have assumed financial commitments in respect of refugees will continue to do so. The question whether new groups of refugees in need of assistance will be maintained by the Intergovernmental Committee or by their own Governments will be for consideration on the individual merits of each case.
The Executive Committee has recommended that, in order to avoid overlapping, the proposed United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration should be responsible for maintenance of refugees in areas where it is operating, if it is prepared to undertake this task.”
- Neither printed.↩