I CHINESE REFUGEES
ESSENTIAL FACTS
VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE
CONFIDENTIAL
1. Refugees continue to reach Hong Kong where there now are over 64,000, of whom 6,500 have arrived since the Geneva meeting on 20/
21 July. There is some evidence of official Vietnamese connivance
in the latest departures.
2. The Vietnamese have spoken of 1.8 - 2.5 million more people who
wish to leave. At least 800,000 of these are ethnic Chinese, whom the Vietnamese want to be rid of; in the longer term we expect the Vietnamese to get them out.
3. Dr Waldheim's report to the UNCA on the working of arrangements agreed at Geneva is likely to be debated in mid-November in the Third Committee. This is an opportunity to keep up pressure on the Vietnamese.
ORDERLY DEPARTURE
4. Attempts to expand the UNHCR/Vietnam agreement of 31 May ("the 7-point-programme") for orderly direct departure from Vietnam do not appear to have succeeded. Mr de Haan was the leading UNHCR negotiator of the original agreement. Only one flight a week (say 500 emigrants
UNHCR office in Ho Chi Minh City does Vietnam called for 10,000 a month to
a month) is leaving and the
not neem to be operational.
leave this way.
C
The situation has been complicated by delay in Vietnamese approval of the UNHCR nomination of a UK citizen, Mr Clarence, as the new representative in Hanoi (now agreed) and by US efforts to send Consular officers to work in the Ho Chi Minh City UNHCR office to process applications. The USA is prepared to accept up to 20,000 per year in this way.
CONFIDENCIAL
/OVERLAND