RL4K 13/11
From The Minister of State
16. Muxcuse
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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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Dohr Philip
London SW1A 2AH
11 November 1986
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Thank you for sending copies of your paper entitled "Closed Camps and Closed Hearts" to Geoffrey Howe and myself. We are grateful to you for taking the trouble to set down your thoughts with such care.
To take first your points on the policy of closed camps in Hong Kong. As you will know, we and the Hong Kong Government have always regarded the closed camps as a temporary arrangement which should cease to be necessary once the flow of illegal departures from Vietnam has reduced to a trickle. Within the constraints of the closed camp policy, the Hong Kong Government seeks to do all that it can to make conditions in the camps as humane as possible. As you have seen for yourself, it provides the refugees with accommodation, food, medical attention, and educational, recreational, and vocational training facilities, and employs specially recruited and trained staff to work in the camps. Voluntary agencies provide a range of social services to refugees in each of the camps and representatives from among the refugees are able to discuss various aspects of camp life at daily meetings with the staff. The last United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
Mr Poul Hartling, visited one of the closed camps in mid-1985 and said that, although he did not like the idea of such camps he "found the circumstances, the conditions, very encouraging". Having seen the refugee camps myself I am satisfied that the Hong Kong Government is doing everything possible, in very difficult circumstances, to treat the refugees well. It is also worth noting, although I accept that polls of this sort tend to produce the answers the questioner seeks, that, out of 562 refugees questioned in the closed camps only 13 would choose to return to Vietnam.
As you say in your letter, some 20,000 Indochinese have already been accepted for resettlement. 500 more refugees from camps both in Hong Kong and elsewhere in South East Asia, are currently being admitted as a result of our decision announced by the Home Secretary last September, to relax our present criteria on family reunion. I am glad to say that this initiative has encouraged other countries themselves to accept some 1100 more refugees from Hong Kong than they might otherwise
Sir Philip Goodhart MP
House of Commons
LONDON SWLA OAA