22-MAY-1992 10:05
FOD NEWS DEPT
Goodlad
071 270 3734
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A MAS
Well, we are, or rather, the Hong Kong Government and China are collaborating to try and ensure that the recent unacceptable increase in violont orime is not allowed to continue. The administration takes the problem very seriously and I personally take it very seriously indeed and I shall not only be talking to Mr Zhou Nan about it, I am going to see the police and various sites. But it is something where they can be of assistance to the Hong Kong Government and indeed are being,
Sally Blyth
You will also be arriving in the territory amid growing unrest in the Vietnamese detention centres over the recent mandatory repatriation agreement with Vietnam. How concerned are you that this unrest is now going to escalate?
Mr Goodlad
is no
4
I very much hope that it won't escalate, the agreement between the Un
Kingdom and Vietnam is now being implemented. There cecord number of volunteers to return and the nuRDEI of new arrivals has dwindled, I am glad to say, to a trickle and non-rafugees in the camps will be returned in accordance with normal international practice.
Sally Blyth
Is Britain going to wash its hands of this problem now that you havA
aged to get this final part of the mandatory
agreement in place?
repatrí.
Mr Goodlad
Britain is very keen to see that the agreement is adhered to, that the repatriation takes place in an orderly fashion at a proper pace and that in Vietnam the conditions are set out in the agreement.
as
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