BACKGROUND NOTE
Flag A
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
1.
The British-registered vessel MV Sibonga (British Bank Line) picked up 984 Vietnamese refugees at sea on 21 May and arrived with them off Hong Kong early today (24 May). Another British- registered vessel, the MV Roachbank, also owned by the Bank Line, picked up a further 293 refugees on 23 May while en route for Kaohsiung in Taiwan. It is due there on 25 May.
However, Asian countries
Most of them now refuse
2. In the past the conventional practice has been for ships rescuing Indo-Chinese refugees at sea to take them to the "next scheduled port of call" and land them there. have been taking an increasingly tough line. to allow refugees rescued at sea to disembark without an undertaking from the country of registration of the rescuing vessel that it will accept for permanent resettlement any refugees not settled elsewhere within an agreed period. The previous British Government announced in August 1978 that where the rescuing vessel was registered at a port in the UK such an undertaking would be given when required (Hansard Vol 395 Col 1306). Some other Western countries, eg France,
At least Germany and Norway are known to follow similar practice. 650 Indo-Chinese refugees have been settled in this country after having been rescued at sea by British-registered ships since the beginning of 1977. The commitment is open ended, ie over and above any declared quota of refugees from camps accepted for settlement.
3. The Governor of Hong Kong has asked for an assurance that if the refugees on board the Sibonga are allowed to land there the UK willgive a resettlement undertaking on the lines announced by the previous Government. The authorities in Taiwan will certainly require a similar undertaking before allowing the refugees on board the Roachbank to disembark if they allow them to land at all. In october last year the British-registered (and owned) MV Wellpark picked up 346 refugees en route to Taiwan. We were eventually obliged to arrange a charger flight (exceptionally at UNHCR expense) to bring them to the UK.
14.