BBC RADIO 4 "TODAY" PROGRAMME: WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 1988
MFD 243/15
M
taks File
Presenter: More talks between Britain and Vietnam will take place
at the Foreign Office today on what to do with the thousands of
refugees who continue to arrive in Hong Kong from Vietnam every month. The Foreign Office Minister, Timothy Eggar, will be trying to persuade the Vietnamese delegation to accept the repatriation of those who have decided that they would like to return home. But as
Joanna Buchan now reports, both sides are equally concerned about
what to do with the thousands who want to stay away:
Joanna Buchan:
It's estimated that nearly 150 Vietnamese refugees arrive in Hong Kong every day. There are almost 24,000 there at the moment and the colony's Government is desperately trying to prevent more arriving. Since June this year refugee status is no longer granted automatically. Instead people are classed as illegal
immigrants unless they pass a screening which redefines them as
refugees. On the face of it, the problem is not with the 340 the
Hong Kong Government have said are willing to return home. As the
leader of the Vietnamese delegation, Vu Khoan, explained, his
Government's policy towards such people is clear.
Vu Khoan: We have announced our policy very clearly that for those
who want to return to the country we are willing to accept them.
For all those who apply to return, we will consider to repatriate
them.
Joanna Buchan: Although record numbers are arriving, fewer
Vietnamese are leaving the colony for resettlement. Britain will
allow only 20 a month to come here, so the problem facing the three
governments is what to to do with those who arrived after the new
regulations were put into force, the 9,500 Vietnamese who do not
qualify as refugees and who do not want to return home. James Miles, the BBC's correspondent in Beijing, was at the first round of
talks on the crisis which were held in Hanoi. As he explains,
sending people home is far from simple.
James Miles: This does involve certain practical difficulties.
When I was in Vietnam for the first round of talks, I went to a
village near Haiphong, the major port in the north, and villagers there told me that they would be rather unhappy about having people