CONFIDENTIAL
So have I ! Ди
:
A Belgian official of that organisation has been in Bangkok for four weeks waiting for an entry visa into Vietnam. The present Swedish head of the UNHCR office here is a nice but rather ineffective man, who runs an inefficient and unsyste- matic office. His British successor has been turned down by the Vietnamese after many weeks of waiting. I do not discern in UNHCR here the sort of dynamism which could in the short run alter a bad state of affairs. UNHCR personnel here blame receiving countries for not coming forward with lists of people they wish to take. There is certainly some truth in this: France, for instance, prefers to deal bilaterally on matters concerning French citizens and "special cases". the picture is in fact more complicated. For instance, apart from France, the Community countries have some three thousand names, known to UNHCR, of people whom they have been trying to get out of Vietnam for years many since 1975.
But
12.
I have always thought that the Vietnamese decision to turn off the tap (done in fact before the Geneva Conference) was a purely tactical move, and that it would take more than a conference to alter her policy of ridding herself of her ethnic Chinese minority and what she would term "unwanted Vietnamese elements". The failure, so far, of the UNHCR orderly departure scheme gives Vietnam the excuse, when she needs it, to turn the tap on again. She can talk about the broken promises of Geneva, of how pressures for leaving are such that she can no longer hold back the tide of refugees, and of how such pressures have been deliberately built up by countries sending ships, eg the US Seventh Fleet, to pick up refugees, etc, etc.
13. I would not expect any sudden leap in refugee figures. But the weather has improved; and I think it probable that the flow will build up gradually. This could be done without a return to the full-scale government-run "racket", although on that there have been two ominous reports. First, the mention in Hong Kong telegram No 1336 to the FCO (not repeated to all) of a thousand ethnic-Chinese people in the Hué area registering for departure, and secondly a report from a source in Ho Chi Minh City that refugee boats are being organised, but that "the authorities" are being more selective than in the past about who can go.
14. One grain of comfort is that the prevailing winds for the next few months are from the north-east. This should make it harder for refugees to reach Hong Kong and should facilitate their passage to Malaysia and other countries to the south.
- 5
Yuu
CONFIDENTIAL
lves,
John.
J W D Margetson
/copy to: