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2. Тия выловіст
18
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
Nuck Cumming -Binaf
the time from Bangkit.
targets for
People on a journey to nowhere victims of expediency
barbarous treatment all descriptions this week of the thousands of
Vietnamese boat people now housed in camps in Hong Kong. Wednesday's
agreement between the governments of Britain, Hong Kong and Vietnam
provides for the return of all those who've flooded into Hong Kong since
June, when the authorities there said that new arrivals would not be
classed as refugees, but as illegal immingrants. Now 350 are said to
have volunteered to return home and Vietnam has promised that they will
be treated humanely. Under what the agreement calls comprehensive
arrangements - another nine thousand are due to follow. The accord has
prompted an angry response in some British newspapers which claim that
Britain and Hong Kong have effectively agreed to forcible repatriation.
Rita Fan is a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council and a prominent advocate of repatriation on the line to Hong Kong I asked her first
for her reaction to this week's agreement.
i
MED 243/5
NOV 1988
M. L
DATELINE EAST
ASIA 14/10/88