XN000022-1995-11-02 — Page 79

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Vietnamese Migrants

Finally, let me respond to some Honourable Members' concern on the Vietnamese Migrants (VM) problem. We share the community's wish to see an early end to this unwelcome burden on Hong Kong. We remain fully committed to resolving this problem as soon as possible.

All the VMs in our detention centres came after June 1988, when we began the screening policy. They have gone through scrupulously thorough screening procedures, and have been determined to be non-refugees. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), which was agreed in 1989 by over 70 countries (including China) as the strategy to deal with the VM problem, all screened-out VMs must return to Vietnam. There is no other course. Indeed, over 47,000 Vietnamese Migrants have since returned to Vietnam through the voluntary and orderly repatriation programmes, rather than wasting their lives in the camps.

Sadly, false hopes of overseas resettlement have stalled the voluntary repatriation programme in recent months. Any suggestion that adds to such false hopes but without any realistic prospect of their fulfilment, will clearly harm our efforts to repatriate the remaining 21,000 Vietnamese Migrants. We have already seen the damage done by legislative initiatives in the US Congress. Any suggestion that the UK should take all the VMs if any of them should still be in Hong Kong by July 1997 will exacerbate the damage, and work against what we - the Government, the people, and indeed the international community - all want to achieve.

We are experiencing a trough in the voluntary repatriation programme, but that is no reason to be despondent. We are liaising closely with the UNHCR and the US Administration which, we understand, is working hard to repair the damage done by the US Congressional initiatives. As I now speak, a US Administration delegation is in Hanoi to discuss with the Vietnamese Government measures to re-generate voluntary repatriation. We hope that voluntary repatriation under the CPA will pick up again before too long. In the meantime, we will step up the pace of the Orderly Repatriation Programme. This is no easy task, as events in the last few months have demonstrated. Our Correctional Services and Police officers, who have displayed exemplary professionalism, courage and restraint in carrying out these operations in often dangerous circumstances, deserve a vote of gratitude from the community.