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Mrs L G Belfall
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3
7 October 1976
7.
"For some time the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been considering appealing to the international community to find re settlement opportunities for this first category of refugees and it was following some pressure from ourselves and the Americans that he launched his appeal more rapidly than he might otherwise have done. Our reasons for applying such pressure, apart from the obvious humanitarian considerations, were to help alleviate Hong Kong's burden and also to get other countries in the area to allow themselves to be used for first asylum. The main American concern is, of course, to encourage others to share the burden of permanent settlement."
Paragraph 3
I should have thought that the penultimate sentence of paragraph 3 of your draft might be amended to read:-
we would now like to apply the unused part of this quota to meet the present request.'
#
(so that you could, if required, take up to 116 refugees under the UNHCR's scheme)
8. If and when it is agreed that you may apply the unused part of the quota of 151 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong whom you ૬૦૦
were prepared to take last year Taylor's letter IMG/75 58-1026-20 Profile of 3 October 1975 to O'Keeffe - I would hope that, subject to
the criterion of personal acceptability, you would be ready to accept any refugees from the "MV Ava" who may by then still be in Hng Kong. We told Hong Kong in late July that you would be prepared to advise your Ministers to give sympathetic consideration to any requests for permanent settlement in this country by refugees from the "Ava" once it was established that the voluntary agencies would be able to make arrangements for them and it was known how many refugees would not be resettled in other countries. (I enclose, for convenience, a copy of FCO telegram No 584 of 28 July to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong authorities reported, at the end of September, that there were 29 refugees from the "Ava" fand two other vessels which had arrived in Hong Kong at about the same time) still in Hong Kong. (In the meantime, Hong Kong have allowed 14 refugees aboard a Dutch vessel, the"Liederkerk", to land temporarily.) If it does not prove possible to resettle this group elsewhere in the near future, it seems to me that they ought to be regarded as having a good claim for admission to this country (assuming they would wishtto come here).
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9. You will, no doubt, let us know the outcome of your approach to the Treasury.
Cc:
Mr Morgan
UND
Mr Goldsmith SEAD
Mrs M-1latt M & VD
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D F Milton
Hong Kong Department