CONFIDENTIAL
citizens should be encouraged by every means to stay put in Vietnam. Receiving countries should then examine critically how far their present practices are consistent with this principle. (For example you could take another look at one or two of the ideas in Martin Barber's SCOR paper, especially paragraphs 14 and 15 on family reuni- fication and unaccompanied children. My letter of 3 December 1981 refers.)
(MR)
10.
Thirdly, in my experience the way to get the Vietnamese to The perform on their undertakings is to keep on pestering them. Vietnamese Government have stated their willingness to try to restrain the number of illegal departures. I suspect that one reason for this is that they realise the "boat people" are complicating their relations with ASEAN. There should be some scope for ASEAN to play on this, They can reasonably point out that the outflow of "boat people" is not being bought under control, and insist, in the name of good neigh- bourliness and of Vietnam's own past policy statements, that something should be done. They could at the same time imply that the "boat people" issue is a definite complication in their relations with Vietnam. (It is a bad tactic with the Vietnamese to state too baldly that there is a linkage between two unrelated issues. It requires considerable finesse to put the Vietnamese in the position of demandeur.)
But if It is not for me to suggest what policies ASEAN should adopt. there are occasions on which countries of final, and countries of first asylum get together to co-ordinate their policies, then as seen from here, these are some ideas we could put forward.
11. As you will gather from the above, my feeling is that there are certain lines of action which we could usefully pursue in an attempt to restrain illegal departures. In practice, we may not achieve all that much, but I feel that we should at least make the effort rather than simply wait for the worst to happen.
Derek Tonkin
cc: R D Clift Esq, HKGD, TCO
HE Mr H A J Staples CMG, Bangkok HE Mr V Bentley CMG, Kuala Lumpur HE Mr J D Hennings CMG, Singapore
HE Mr R Brash CMG, Jakarta
HE Mr M H Morgan OMG, Manila
HE Sir A Parsons GCMG MVO MC, UKMIS New York HE Mr P H R Marshall CMG, UKMIS, Geneva
HE Sir N Henderson GCMG, Washington
HE Sir J Mason KCLIG, Canberra
HE The Lord Moran KCMG, Ottawa
Political Adviser, Hong Kong
Director of Immigration, Hong Kong
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