You refer in your letter to the Committee's
regret that the Government have not agreed to the
Home Affairs Committee's recommendation that the
closed camps in Hong Kong should be abolished. We have many times made clear that neither we nor the
Hong Kong Government regard the closed camps policy
as a satisfactory or desirable one; it is a temporary measure that we and Hong Kong would wish
to remove as soon as circumstances allow us to do
The Select Committee itself commented that "the
reasons for introducing closed camps are
understandable"; paragraph 13 of the Government's
Reply to their Report sets out, as requested by the
Committee, the circumstances in which we would withdraw our sanction from the closed camps policy,
and makes it clear that the solution is in the hands
of the authorities in Hanoi, and not of those in
London or Hong Kong.
so.
Since repatriation to Vietnam is not a
feasible proposition at present the best way to reduce the need for the camps is to encourage resettlement in third countries. We have been doing
this with some success. In 1985 the number of
refugees in the open and closed camps was reduced in each case by over one thousand despite the
arrival of 1,112 more refugees. If this trend
continues it may be possible to close down the Cape
Collinson Closed Centre (whose population has fallen
to some 350) during 1986; the Hong Kong Government
are monitoring the numbers of arrivals and
departures with a view to making the best possible arrangements for accommodating the refugees given the very limited space available in the territory.
/Finally,