243/1
B Morgan Esq UN Department
FCO
:
BRITISH EMBASSY
ROME
573
21 April 1979
Hick 243/1
INDEX
2 5 APR 1970
PA
по Прв
30. 51
Taken
₩28
539
Dear Morgan,
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
1.
Thank you for your letter UNS 243/13 of 9 April about the Italian Government's aid to Vietnamese refugees.
2. I asked Ruggiero, the Head of the Far East Department in the Italian MFA, about progress in their consideration of "other emergency measures". He said that nothing had yet been decided. The MFA were working on the possibility of a special extraordinary contribution to the UNHCR, and of a further commitment to accept a specific number of additional refugees. Accepting whole families was, however, very difficult because of the unemployment situation in Italy, and the MFA were therefore thinking particularly of the adoption of children. I got the impression that, for all their efforts, nothing very much is likely to come of all this.
3. Ruggiero assured me that they were keeping the Hong Kong problem very much in mind. He mentioned that they were about to instruct their Consul-General in Hong Kong to find another family of 5-8 for resettlement in Italy. This was in fact a repetition of the offer referred to in Hong Kong telno 192 of 1 February, since the family who had originally been selected had decided in the end to go to America rather than to Italy. Ruggiero said that he realised that this was only a drop in the ocean; but it was at least a token gesture.
Yours ever,
Mark Fellew
ME Pellew
cc:
I C Orr Esq, Government Secretariat, Hong Kong
DR Snoxell Esq, UKMis Geneva
HK&GD, FCO
SEAD, FCO
RESTRICTED