From:
t
Lieutenant Colonel RA PREEDY ORE
CABLE DRESS:
BRUMILFOR
TELEX.
TELEPHON
220
25581
G/OPS/4/5
Mr D M McBain
First Secretary
British High Commission
Jalan Residency
Bandar Seri Begawan
BRUNEI
عسکر ملايو دراج بروني
ROYAL BRUNEI MALAY REGIMENT
BERAKAS CAMP
BRUNEI
BRUNET
125
April 1979
T
14 APRI979
"
PRICE VE TANISCHR BRUNE!
82
3
440/1
Dear Makam,
I wonder if I could raise with you as a matter of urgency an important matter concerning Vietnamese refugees.
You will recall the DEC decision two or three months ago to apply to HH The Sultan for permission to open a government-to-government/police-to-police dialogue with our neighbouring Malaysian states in order to improve intelligence of local refugee movement. To date there seems to have been no reaction from the Istana at least, so far as I am personally aware. The result is that we are still totally in the dark; and this at a time when further refugee vessels may soon appear following the end of the North-West monsoon.
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Both in view of this situation and in order to extend the geographic coverage, 1 am writing to ask whether you could possibly set up as soon as possible some regular intelligence reporting system through diplomatic channels. Ideally, we would like a weekly summary
which could be very short indicating known refugee boat movements in our area of concern: mainland Malaysia, North Borneo Malaysia and the Philippines. These reports could show when refugee vessels left these countries and ideally would include the name and size of boat, the numbers of occupants and, in the best case, their suspected next port of call. However, beggars can't be choosers and, frankly, we would be glad of anything that helped to lift the present total blanket!
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