}
HKCS
8
SHEET NO
Friday, 9.5.80
9.30 a.m.: Meeting with HM Consul-General, Mr. Thom, Mr. Tickett
and Mrs. Walker. Mr. Thom summarized his previous efforts to arouse interest in taking more of Hong Kong's refugees. One problem is that the two quite different issues "Asylanten" and "Refugees" are in the
mind of most people identical. It has also often been stated in
Germany that the Vietnamese refugees have left Vietnam for economic
reasons and are not genuine political refugees. The same statement
is made in regard to those seeking asylum from Pakistan, Turkey and
African countries. This conversation was very helpful to me.
10:30 a.m.:
Meeting with Mr. Schumann, Chairman of the "Sozialpoli- tischen Asschuss der Hamburger Bürgerschaft" (SPD-Fraktion) in the City Hall of Hamburg. Mr. Schumann is a key person in Hamburg, very intelligent and genuinely concerned as to what I had to say about Hong Kong. He took detailed notes and promised to present Hong Kong's
case at the meeting of the SPD-Fraktions-Vorstandsitzung in Bonn on
May 31.
He asked to mention this to Dr. Meinecke when seeing him in
Bonn.
He will furthermore send a report about our meeting to the
Mayor of Hamburg.
12 noon:
Press Conference at the "Amt fuer Öffentlichkeitsdienst" der
Nordelbischen Kirche.
Present: Neue Hamburger Abendzeitung
Die Welt
Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Evangelischer Pressedienst
He,
2 p.m. Meeting with Senatsdirektor Runde of the Ministry of Social
Affairs. He first outlined Hamburg's difficulties resulting from the
influx of many different nationalities, housing problems, etc. however, confirmed that the Vietnamese refugees are causing hardly any serious problems. Hamburg, so he said, is not opposed to a general quota increase for Vietnamese refugees. On the other hand he regret- fully reported that Hamburg had to admit 4 Cuban refugees
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