Chairman of the Uganda Resettlement Board made a statement that refugees would be persuaded to settle in places that had not already experienced strains on social services.

The chairman of the Board was interviewed by The Times in which he explained the approach that was to be taken to address the Ugandan Asian Refugee crisis:

“Nationwide search to house Asians, board chief says

Peaslake Surrey, Aug 24

Sir Charles Cunningham, chairman of the newly formed Uganda Resettlement Board, said tonight that a nationwide survey of available hostel space for Uganda Asians was already under way.

In an exclusive interview at his Surrey home, Sir Charles explained that local authorities were being asked to supply full details of available temporary accommodation in their areas. This survey will also take in such buildings as school and village halls, but this would be in the last resort.

Sir Charles pointed out that he hoped to avoid setting up refugee camps as such. ‘But it may be that some contingency planning on that basis will be necessary,’ he told us.

All local authorities would be circularized with information about the board’s priorities following its first official meeting next Wednesday morning.

Sir Charles said that he recognized the difficulties being encountered by local authorities in areas with a high proportion of immigrants. ‘This is a difficult problem, but I believe it is a manageable one’, he said.

Sir Charles outlined the board’s two main priorities. “These will be accommodation and jobs. If I could forget about these, everything else would be comparatively easy’, he said.

The board, whose membership is not complete, has already got a nucleus of staff drawn from a number of ministries including the Department of Employment, the Department of the Environment, the Home Office and the Foreign Office.

Immigration officers have been flown to Kampala to gather information about the kinds of jobs the Uganda Asians will be capable of doing. “This will all be processed by computer in London, and will enable us to try to guide people to the best areas’, Sir Charles said. He made it plain that the board has no power to order immigrants into particular areas, or to requisition buildings. ‘We can only persuade and encourage them’, he said. ‘We will be telling them which areas are already overcrowded and helping to find ones where employment is available.’

Sir Charles admitted that one major difficulty facing the board’s members was the fact that available housing and accommodation was often to be found in areas in which there was little prospect of employment.

He added that the board was conceived along the same lines as the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board set up to deal with the problems which followed the Suez crisis. Sir Charles was accounting officer to that board and has close experience of its dealings.

Of his present post, first suggested to him in a telephone call two days ago, he said: ‘It is not the sort of job one would have applied for, but I have been brought up to believe that when you are asked to do something, you do it.’

Tomorrow morning members of the board will meet for further informal discussions. One of the main points for consideration will be the composition of interviewing boards which will be designated to meet immigrants at airports, and possible also at ports in the later stages of the exodus.

Sir Charles told us that he hoped the boards would consist of a mixture of government officials and of volunteers.

The question of providing the resettlement board with government finance had not yet been discussed fully, although it is high on the agenda.

Sir Charles said he could envisage a time in which individual members of the board would visit areas to ease the integration of the new immigrants into the community. ‘I suppose we might become a kind of salvage corps in that way’, he said.

No time limit had been set for the duration of the board. ‘As far as I am concerned it is an open-ended job’, Sir Charles said.

Michael Leapman writes from New York: A United Nations subcommission yesterday rejected a proposal to send a telegram to President Amin expressing concern. But it seems likely that a resolution will be passed urging the United Nations to look into the broad matter of the rights of people resident in countries where they are not citizens.

Mr Roberts Rhodes James, director of the Institute for the Study of International Organizations at Sussex University, suggested that the telegram should be sent by the subcommission on the prevention of discrimination and the protection of minorities, an offshoot of the Human Rights Commmission. He is the only Briton on the subcommission, although he does not represent the British government officially.”

Source: Christopher Walker and Geoffrey Wansell, ‘Nationwide search to house Asians, board chief says’, The Times, 24 Aug 1972