DRAFT PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION
Q. To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs if he will make a statement on Vietnamese migrants.
A.
On
the British, Hong Kong and Vietnamese Governments
reached agreement on the modalities for the second phase of the
Orderly Repatriation Programme, covering the repatriation from Hong
Kong of Vietnamese illegal immigrants that is those who under the screening procedures agreed and monitored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have been found not to be
refugees.
This second phase covers those non-refugees who were already in Hong
Kong on 29 October 1991 when the Orderly Repatriation Programme was
announced. Earlier arrangements covered those who arrived in Hong Kong after that date and those who having already been repatriated
voluntarily, returned to Hong Kong in the hope of collecting a
further UNHCR reintegration allowance.
There are still 56,000 Vietnamee migrants in Hong Kong, the vast
majority of whom will probably not qualify as refugees. Those who
are screened out will, if the decision is upheld by the independent
Review Board, be offered the chance to return under the UNHCR
scheme. We hope most will do so. But inevitably some will not.
These will be returned under the Orderly Repatriation Programme.
The Orderly Repatriation Programme is based on the firm principles that nobody who UNHCR believes to be a refugee will be returned and that no returning migrant wil face persecution. The Vietnamese
Government has reaffirmed its commitment not to persecute returnees
and to facilitate access to them by UNHCR to ensure this guarantee
is respected.
Since 1988 more than 20,000 Vietnamese migrants have returned home
from the region without a single substantiated case of persecution.
VM1AGK