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8.42 p.m.
Indo-China;
[LORDS]
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords,TMt feel diffident in speaking in this debate for we have had such experts when I myself have not been there recently. The idea was that, having dealt with refugees both in Europe and Indonesia, perhaps it might be helpful if I were to give a little of my experience. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on his most moving speech and on the great deal of trouble that he has taken in visiting these camps- when he has a very busy life in this country and showing his compassion for these people.
We have a great many voluntary organisations in this country which are doing the best they can. There is the Standing Conference of British Organisa- tions for Aid to Refugees. I should like to speak briefly on the question of Save the Children. They have been working there since 1976 and are still there. They are doing a valuable job with their medical work in connection with mother-and- child health. They already have five camps there. One camp has 38,000 people in it, mostly children. I thought that when I had to deal with a camp of 10,000 people in Indonesia that that was a great task, but the task there must be beyond any- body's abilities to do much. It must be very upsetting for them. However, they have medical teams and are training Thai doctors to help. There are quite a lot of expatriates working there. Unfortunately, the numbers are coming in even more quickly, I understand, at the present time. I have no brackdown by nationality of the inmates, but mostly they are from either Laos or Cambodia, although some are from Vietnam. In August 1978 there were 114,887 people in these camps. Now the figure has risen to over 140,000.
I should like to thank the Government, through the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy- Roberts, for the grant that they make. I gather that organisation, themselves, are spending about £75,000 per annum on the work, but the Government are also granting about £37,000. For this they are grateful. The problem of these camps is that more are coming in than are going out. This is a great problem for the Thai Government who are doing a mag- nificent job at the present time in helping where they can.
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The Disasters Emergency Committee which met on 5th February last to discuss the problem sent a cable to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in which they expressed great concern in regard to this matter and asked for immediate action. I wonder what contact the Government have with the Govern- ments concerned to see whether there is a possibility of allowing the British Red Cross or, better still, the International Red Cross, to go in to see what the conditions are. I understand (and I may not be right) that they cannot go in unless the Governments concerned invite them. I was very pleased that the Government of Indonesia invited me and the International Red Cross to visit the camps. With the permission of the Government we went round the various camps--and, of
course, the people are in camps and are kept there. They were mostly Asians, but there was quite a number of Dutch, also.
If you
The Government said, in effect: can get them to sign an agreement that they will be faithful to our Government we will let them out gradually. If they will not sign, we will see that they will get out in leave. We did not bring them out too an orderly way". Some 75,000 opted to quickly; we wanted to plan the thing; and this was allowed. Is there any chance that, in talking to the Governments con- cerned, we might get some action taken on
these lines. It would be beneficial to
everybody. First, they would get rid of the people who were not keen to stay, and, secondly, they would be able to get supplies for those who do want to stay there and to look after them better in the future. I tried to persuade most of them to stay. I felt and still feel that for these people the climate in many countries to which they go now is not suitable for them and probably will not be beneficial to their health. Tuberculosis, we know, is rife in some of these countries. I should have thought that the thing to do would be to try to get some agreement--this may be quite impossible; I am merely putting the suggestion forward-with the Govern- ments concerned.
There are a number of countries that we know of like Guyana which are very under-populated and which already have a mixed population, What approach has been made to some of these countries? I merely give that one as an example. Mr.
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