1. Acknowledged
From: The Reverend W. Martin Smyth, BA BD MP
(Belfast, South)
22/10/86
2. Mini of State has/has not seen
*
HKD) Department for wron
(dvice and deafe reply from
foremo
by 30/x pre
ди
HOUSE OF COMMONS
22 LONDON SWIA OAA
a Psy mo Renton yor ??
Reply to:-
117 Cregagh Road BELFAST BT6 OLA
0232 57009
-
17th October 1986.
·
Minister of State,
Mr. Timothy Renton, M.P.,
London SWIA 2AH.
King Charles Street,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
НИК 243/А RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
M Rela
- 3 NOV 1986
INDIES
Ref: WMS\MC.
Weston •
Dear Timothy,
Following through your kind response of the 6th August 1986 to my query through my research assistant to Sir Geoffrey on the 24th July I appreciate the data that you gave me. I must admit that I was not fully aware of the situation in Hong Kong until it was brought to my attention by an old friend in Geneva who has an adopted Vietnamese daughter.
Significantly just at the end of last week I discovered a group of people in Ulster who approached me again on the issue for their concern. Some of these had worked with the Chinese Church in the past and had been involved with the Vietnamese refugees who came to Northern Ireland and on my desk today I received the latest Hong Kong Dateline of the 3rd October. In it there reference to David Waddington when he visited, amongst other things, three of the closed centres.
Thankfully at this moment I have no individual complaints of ill-treatment. On the other hand it is possible in the light of the numbers involved and the tension that arises from time to time incidents do happen, but in fairness the general impression is that given that given the difficult situation the Hong Kong government is doing a remarkably good task. On the other hand your letter says that there are some 8500 Vietnamese refugees waiting resettlement and one recognises that some of them must have been there for some time with an acknowledgement that 500 have been processed and hopefully should soon been completed. Has the other 1100 been already taken out of the camp or would they reduce the numbers and has the Hong Kong government taken their 250. The point I am making that is for whatever reason we have got to give hope to those who remain in the camp and as long as people are moving out there will be hope that others will get out.
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