SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret
Secret
Confidential
Restricted
Unclassified
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
6.
DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
As you know, we concluded our Agreement with the
Vietnamese, setting the terms of the first flight, on 22
November. Public statements by the Vietnamese Foreign
Minister, indicating their unwillingness to accept anyone
are not helpful but they repatriated by force, do not reflect a change of position
on the part of Vietnam. Indeed, this is consistent with
records their opposition to forced repatriatisa, the Agreement we have signed with them. Under customary
international law, any country is obliged to take back
those of its own citizens who are not accepted on the
territory of another country. This is a point which we can deploy with the Vietnamese and in public.]
7.
We
are doing everything we can
I am satisfied that everything possible is being
done to ensure that we are able to proceed with this
difficult and sensitive operation as planned. But much
We will need could still go wrong, and it will clearly be necessary to
take a final decision about whether or not to proceed in
the light of a careful assessment at the time of the
chances of success.
8.
I also mentioned to you when we spoke that we were
looking beyond the operation on 12 December. We have to
face the fact that even if we succeed in sending back
several plane loads of non volunteers in the coming
months, it is unlikely that we will be able to establish
a repatriation programme of sufficient volume to deter a
new outflow of boat people next year. Our priority must
be to try to prevent another influx into Hong Kong on the
scale of this year's, which amounted to over 30,000.