XN000022-1995-11-29 — Page 30

Our problem now is no longer a massive influx of boat people. Those days of massive arrivals have long gone. Arrivals since 1992 have fallen to a few hundred and even tens a year. In any case, the profile of new arrivals has clearly changed. Of the some 400 Vietnamese migrants who have arrived so far this year, only 65 put forward a claim for refugee status. Of the new arrivals now in the territory, about half have been here at least once before. What we are now facing is a pattern of illegal immigration and people coming to work here illegally. The answer to that particular problem lies, not in denying asylum to anyone who reach our shores, but in swift repatriation to Vietnam of those who have no claim to refugee status. Bilateral arrangements which would achieve this objective were envisaged by the Fifth CPA Steering Committee meeting, which agreed that Vietnamese nationals arriving in the region after 14 February 1994 should be treated in accordance with national legislations and internationally accepted practice. We have since put proposals to the Vietnamese authorities which, if implemented, should step up the pace of return of Vietnamese migrants newly arriving in the territory. These proposals will be on the agenda during the Refugee Co-ordinator's talks with the Vietnamese authorities in Hanoi on December 4. But that should not mean, nor does it require us to abandon the first asylum policy or does it contradict such a policy.

Abolition of the policy of first asylum would require our marine police to push off boats, which could be unseaworthy, which could have women and children on board. This would be contrary to the humanitarian principles on which our society is founded. It would also feed ammunition to our critics, who seek to undermine what we have set out to achieve the early return to Vietnam of all 21,000 migrants in the territory in a humane way. I cannot believe that anyone who is intent on bringing about a speedy and humane solution to the Vietnamese migrant problem would seriously advocate that we should go down this road. It is self-contradictory to say on the one hand that we should resolve the Vietnamese migrant problem and repatriate all Vietnamese migrants as soon as possible and on the other hand advocate the abolition of the first asylum policy. Abolition of the first asylum policy would only compound our difficulties.

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