The fact is that we cannot afford to take the risk that things will work out this way; because if they do not, Hong Kong will be inundated and we could face a serious threat to law and order in a territory which, as you know, is already in a state of crisis over a
number of other issues.
The importance of the moratorium date is not, therefore, that it is a date from which mandatory repatriation will start, but that is is the date from which it could start, if the situation by then warrants it. And as such, it is crucial in sending the vital message back to those in Vietnam who might be thinking of leaving that taking a boat (or a bus) to Hong Kong is not the way to do it. Our reports already indicate that the message instead sent back as a result of the position taken by your delegation in Geneva is that those who want to leave for Hong Kong have a further year maybe the last to do so. The prospect is deeply worrying.
and
There are two other points I would ask you to consider.
Recent Firstly, Vietnam is already changing very rapidly. journalists' reports do not paint a picture of a people weighed down by a Communist tyranny, but quite the opposite, with familiar Asian entrepreneurial skills beginning to flower, much as they have done, when given a chance, elsewhere. The Vietnamese Government has kept to its undertakings to allow people to leave under the orderly departure programme the safe route which should preclude the boat departures. The IMF has complemented the Vietnamese on their first faltering steps towards economic restructuring the key to solving all the country's problems in the long run. And, as you know, traditional Soviet and Eastern European support is being withdrawn. It is not the country it was a year ago: it is not such a terrible place to send people back to.
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Secondly, I make no pretence that the decision to repatriate the first group of people last December was an easy one to take. But we showed that it could be done, and that no-one would get hurt in the process, nor once they were home. What we did was fully within the terms of the Comprehensive Plan of Action and therefore
The alternative is carried the safeguards which that Plan contains.