Registry No.
SECURITY C “SSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
1
3
DRAFT
CONFIDENTIAL
letter
To:-
Timothy Raison Esq MP
Minister of State
Home Office
50 Queen Anne's Gate SW1H 9AT
Type 1 +
From
Mr Blaker
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
SKU
i
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES ON THE MV SIBONGA...
1. The British registered vessel, MV Sibonga (British Bank
Line), has picked up 900 shipwrecked Vietnamese refugees, an
is now proceeding with them towards Hong Kong, its next
scheduled port of call. It is due to arrive there late on
23 May.
2.
.*
The Governor of Hong Kong has asked for an assurance
that if the, refugees are allowed to land there the UK will
accept for resettlement all who are not offered places by
third countries (effectively the United States). If the
Sibonga's next port of call had been another port in the
region, say Bangkok or Singapore, we would have had to give
such an assurance to get the refugees landed: this is curren
policy. In Hong Kong's case I think we have to reassure the
in the same way :)
Governorso as not to deter British masters in future from
picking up refugees in genuine distress at sea, to meet
public concern in Hong Kong, and to show the rest of the
world that we are responsive to the alarming refugee burden
in the Colony. You probably saw that I answered in the
Adjournment Debate on this whole problem on 17 May.
3. We cannot yet tell how many of the Sibonga's 900
refugees will have to come to Britain, but at a guess I
would say well over half of them may be on our hands.
is a sizeable figure on top of the 1,500 Indo-China refugees
This
/we are
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