CONFIDENTIAL
2
As of today Hong Kong has some 67,000
Vietnamese boat refugees crowded into its already over-
populated territory. That is about a third of the boat
refugees who have ended up on the coasts of the region. # #
They continue to arrive at the rate of 500 a day and if
that rate were to continue Hong Kong would have no less
than 140,000 by the end of this year and the region as a
whole something in the order of half a million boat refugees
alone. So the first priority must be to stem the flood of
boat people from Vietnam. It is not for me to suggest how
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this might be done, but I do know that if it is not done and done quickly, tension will quickly build to a point in South
East Asia where all normal patterns of humanitarian behaviour
will disappear, where countries which have prided themselves
on the compassion of their policies will be forced to take
action which under normal circumstances they would not begin
to consider, where the desperation of people manifest itself
in racial tension and unrest. The present exodus of refugees
from Vietnam by means of transport which are unsafe to unknown
destinations must be replaced by an orderly flow of people who
wish to leave by safe forms of transport to assured destinations.
This in my view must be the first and most important aim of this.
Conference.
Secondly, there is an obvious and crying need for
a comprehensive resettlement programme for those already in the
unwilling host countries of South East Asia. That programme
must be infinitely larger than anything that has been achieved
so far. Already there are some 300,000 boat refugees in
temporary camps in countries around South East Asia.
At the
Verv Teast/