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3.
sribed, are content to turn a blind eye to attempts by ethnic Chinese to leave:
they are less likely to do so for Vietnamese.
betrayal.
5.
There is much scope for deceit and
For those who manage to get away in a boat the chances of survival are
generally considered to be about 50%. The boats are often far too frail for seas
sacountered outside coastal waters. Their engines are sometimes just the small
Japanese diesel engines imported by the thousand into the south in the late 1960s
for the dual purpose of driving sampans and irrigating the fields of peasant farmers.
Very often the boats have insufficient food and water. Sometimes they are
intercepted by the Vietnamese Navy who, according to refugee reports, have opened fire
and sunk such boats, killing and drowning many of the passengers.
7.
Some statistical backing for the 50% chance of survival in a boat escape is
provided by evidence I have obtained in connection with the charter plane-load of
Hong Kong "belongers" we flew out of Ho Chi Minh City on 21 October. In the course
of the many weeks of preparation for this plane, 120 people, who had been granted
entry visas to Hong Kong and who were in the process of being helped through the
complicated exit formalities, disappeared. They probably did so for many and
complicated reasons (eg unwillingness to surrender all their possessions to the
Vietnamese Government, the wish to take with them remote relatives who were
unacceptable to the Hong Kong Government etc). It is reasonable to suppose that
almost all of them chose to leave Vietnam by boat. It is also reasonable to suppose
that all those who succeeded in reaching another country contacted their sponsors in
“Hong Kong. In fact only 40 did so. A few may have reached other countries and not
informed their Hong Kong sponsors, and a few may after some weeks still be en route
to their destinations. But allowing a very generous figure of 20 to cover such
cases, only 60 of the 120 who most probably set off from Vietnam can be reckoned to
be alive. The chances of survival are well known to those who attempt the small boat
route, but in their desperation they still go.
FCO PASS WASHINGTON, SIGNAPORE, KUALA LUMPUR, JAKARTA & UKMIS NEW YORK
MARGATSON
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