CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SWIA 2AH
HKD 243/12
-40CT M
DESA DI
ISTRY
Mrs BH Fair
RECE'
Home Office
Queen Anne's Gate
London
SWIM 9AT
INDL
92
n Taker
TOM
3 October 1933
84
Den Ros Fair, Лю
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES AND THE ODP
1.
83
Please refer to ay Letter of 1 September. I can now reply to your letter of 23 August about the operation of the Orderly Departure Programme for refugees from Vietnam. Tunderstand that David Colvin has in fact already telephoned you on this.
2. We have consulted our Embassy in Hanoi. They have confirmed that the figures for departures under the ODP in July and August were indeed exceptionally high. This was the direct result of the fact that the Vietnamese granted some 210 exit permits in May. But with just 19 departures planned for September the monthly average for this year is likely to be close to the long-term trend of about 30. I hope you can agree that this shoull not be cause for alarm.
To
3. UNHCR deal with some 2,000 departures from Vietnam each mon... The UK programme is only a very small part of this exercise. ask UNHCR to try to control the rate of departaces to the UK would not be easy. UNHCR have however promised to give our Embassy as much notice of departures as possible.
4. Hanoi have suggested that one possible method of giving you more notice of impending arrivals would be to copy to you the exit perait lists issued by the Vietnamese. These would give you a general idea of how many people you can expect during the following three months. If you would like to receive copies of the lists, please let me know,
I
5. should perhaps mention that our own (admittedly indirect) information from the voluntary organistions seems to be at variance with your own. They told a recent visitor from Hong Kong, for example, that in general they are coping with considerable fewer arrivals from Vietnam than in earlier years, and indeed have spare capacity. The rate of reception from Hong Kong has of course been halved compared with the earlier commitment to take 40 a month.
I hope the above explanation meets your concerns. I hope too ROZAIJ
5.
CONFIDENTIAL