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British Embassy
Electra House 115-117 Esteban Street Legaspi Village
Makati Rizal Philippines
Telephone 89-10-51/8
M Reilly Esq
SEAD
FCO
HITK 243/4.
RECEIVE
DE REGISTRY
20 JAN 1987
INDEX
*FICER
PA
REGISTRY
Action Taken
Dear feilly
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
Iller PA
B
Your reference
Our reference
Date
243/1
7 January 1987
1st
3
1. I was grateful to Peter Bean for his copying to me his letter to you of 17 December in which he recounted the views expressed to him by Sir Philip Goodhart MP of his idea to resettle Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines. I do not imagine I need to say it but I fear that Sir Philip is way off beam
in his perceptions of likely Philippine motives in this context. They would not contemplate accepting an influx of Vietnamese refugees in order to "counter balance the growing Muslim
population".. The Muslims already argue (with some justification) that their numbers in Mindanao have already been diluted deliberately by the encouraged migration of Christians from the central Visayas. In round figures the Christians outnumber the
Muslims in Mindanao as a whole by about 2:1.
2. I would also personally have some difficulty identifying any "virtually uninhabited island" in the Philippines. While there are thousands of small islets which are uninhabited it is almost always because they have no water and could not support a population of any size.
You
CC.
PL Bean, Bangkok
CEJ Wilton Esq, Tokyo
K Woodhouse Esq, Hong Kong Chanceries Jakarta, Hanoi Mr Leeks, HKD, FCO Mr Trevan, UND, FCO
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N A Thorne
معسلان