DSR 11C
f
X
led to delays to the ship, a row about revised instructions to
the company's ships' masters about rescuing at sea and a flight
from the Bermuda register all of which in my view have obscure
the main issue which is that we expect Bermuda to accept
responsibility for placing any residual refugees rescued by
ships on her register.
9. Of course they successfully argued both to ourselves and to
UNHCR that Bermuda was a hopelessly unsuitable place for them.
By the time these arguments had been thrashed out, the number
left was only five and I gather you would have found it possible
to accept them. In the event the UNHCR and Bermuda prevailed
upon the USA to take them, and I understand that subsequently the
Bermudan Government have made some progress towards an informal
arrangement with Washington so that the Americans would take
any residue in future. But the nominal responsibility still
rests with Bermuda under any guarantee we issue on their behalf
as likewise it does with Hong Kong under any guarante
we issue for them.
10. My point is that just as the Americans, for reasons of
their own, can help out the Bermudans with residual refugees
dans
for whom they are responsible, we should
without prejudice to
the constitutional position be able to do the same for Hong
Kong. If, in order to help manage Hong Kong's increasingly
difficult refugee problem we were to decide that HMG would be
able to accept these 42, I think it should be possible for us
to explain to Hong Kong either that we were taking them on a
one-off basis without prejudice to our position on residual
refugees rescued by Hong Kong registered ships in future, or that we were prepared to accept residual refugees from Hong Kong
registered ships in these and future cases since it was clearly difficult for them to be settled in Hong Kong, though it would not change our formal position that in cases where we offered
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/third