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4.
Initial media coverage in the UK was a reasonably accurate
reflection of the press conference held at the end of the talks.
(The front page article in the Daily Mail was the exception: Mr
McLaren has minuted separately on this.) But editorial comment today has been more critical. Emphasis has been laid on the fact that
boat people may be returned to Vietnam by force. In some cases the
references are (incorrectly) to the return of refugees. There are
the anticipated comparisons with the return of the Cossacks to the
Soviet Union. The Secretary of State forewarned the Prime Minister
in his minute of 2 September that the media may attempt to draw
emotional and far-fetched analogies of this kind.
C 5. The Secretary of State's minute provides an opportunity to
answer the question in Mr Powell's letter of 5 September about
endowments for economic migrants to resettle in other countries.
This would be a major new departure. If the Vietnamese can be persuaded to take back their own people and we have now made a
start - this must be preferable to attempting to settle them in a foreign country. I do not think the proposition would have any
attraction for the developed resettlement countries, for whom
financial aspects are not a major constraint on increased intakes.
Other countries, in the unlikely event that they were interested at
all, could be expected to exact a very high price for participation
in such a scheme. There could be reservations in the international
community that these countries might not offer a genuine welcome to the boat people; and they might well not want to resettle in the
countries concerned. I believe we should continue to concentrate
our efforts on traditional resettlement of those accorded refugee
status, and the return to Vietnam of all those screened out.
Conten
CO Hum
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