布政司署
香港下亞
畢道
CONFIDENTIAL
*** OUR REF.: (52) in SCR 13/581/79 IV
來函檔號 Your Ref.:
Richard Hoare Esq.,
Hong Kong Department,
Bell bech nor cont! Pl.dsins
wat Mr. Segan.
Security Branch
12
674/7
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
6th July 1983
draft
attached
0.118.
HKCK 243/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
16 AUG 1983
DESK OFFICER
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, LONDON SW1A 2AH.
INDEX
Dr
Richen
Possible Resettlement of Vietnamese Refugees
in South America
(76)
PA
لله
Thank you for your letter of 14 June 1983 about possible resettlement in Paraguay. We had already seen a copy of Mellor's letter of 18 May, and were awaiting replies from Caracas, Montevideo and Santiago to our telegram of 19 April before considering what to do next.
2.
We have now sounded the local UNHCR office, one of whose senior people was previously in Buenos Aires and knows Paraguay well. The problem, as elsewhere in South America, lies with that country's previous unfortunate experience of Asian immigration: a group of Koreans who were sent up-country to cultivate some rather unpromising land, and eventually gravitated back to Asuncion to become rather too successful businessmen. The informal UNHCR view is, that for any VR resettlement in Paraguay to come off, we shall need genuine agricultural workers who will not object to employment on large European-owned estates or tilling barren soil.
3.
It is possible that such refugees can be found, particularly from among those in the closed centres, who have had no contact with urban Hong Kong life and whose alternative prospects for resettlement are bleak. I do not think the UNHCR would be opposed to selection: some resettlement is better than none. We would, however, have to choose carefully, and ensure that those chosen were
CONFIDENTIAL
/...
RESKVAY
Action Taken