DSR 11 (Revised Sept 85)
DRAFT: minute/letter/teleletter/despatch/note
FROM:
Prime Minister
DEPARTMENT:
BUILDING:
TYPE: Draft/Final 1 +
Reference
AIDAFN
TEL. NO:
Your Reference
ROOM NO:
Đi Le Xuan Khoa
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President
Indo-China Resource Action Centre
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In Confidence
USA
Copies to:
Thank you
for your telegram about Vietnamese boat
people in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has an honourable record as a place of
first asylum. The territory has offered temporary refuge
over 123,000 Indo Chinese refugees in the past 13
years. And it will continue to honour its
responsibilities towards genuine refugees from Vietnam,
who meet the UNHCR's criteria for refugee status under
the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Enclosures flag(s)
The purpose of the new screening procedures recently
introduced by the Hong Kong Government is to distinguish
genuine refugees from those arrivals whose motivation for
Leaving Vietnam is simply a desire for a better life; who
cannot therefore be considered political refugees; and
whose prospects of resettlement in the West are