country, can of course never be accepted here no more than elsewhere. It is a terrible thing to send people out
to sea to face an uncertain fate.
What can we do? We allocate considerable sums to help the refugees and we are also accepting a number of refugees to Sweden. But the efforts we and other countries are making
cannot solve problems of this magnitude. Vietnam must cooperate. Some friends of Vietnam do not seem to be prepared even to comment on what is happening. Others want us to punish Vietnam by withdrawing our aid.
It seems to me to be more reasonable that in the first instance we should make clear to the Government in Hanoi that we expect Vietnam to respect the dictates of humanity which they themselves so often invoked during the long years of war.
This is how we have argued in our contacts with the Vietnamese Government. This is also the attitude on which we will base
our actions at the International Conference on the Indo-Chinese Refugee Problems which will take place in Geneva 20-21 July.
A possible basis for ensuring ordered emigration from Vietnam is to be found in an agreement between the UNHCR and the Vietnamese Government, under which exit permits will be given to people who wish to leave the country in onder to rejoin their families or for other reasons. But it is also stipulated that such permits will be given only where entry permits have been given by the receiving countries.
It would be unfortunate if the Geneva conference were to be
turned into a Vietnam tribunal. In our view the conference should take the UNHCR plan as the starting point for an agreement. This agreement should envisage a generous but orderly Vietnamese emigration policy and an internal policy which would ensure that no ethnic majority would feel itself outcast. Such a Vietnamese attitude should be met by the rest of the world by a generous attitude in issuing entry permits to those who wish to leave Vietnam.
/An