XN000022-1996-01-11 — Page 5

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Now, it hasn't been an easy process. It's involved tough work for officials and it's been a very difficult job for our Correctional Services Department and our Police who I think handle it extremely well. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we were making particularly good progress in 1992-1993, even in the first months of 1994, we were transferring back to Vietnam about 12,000 a year and we'd got the figure down from about forty-odd thousand just before I arrived as Governor, to just over 20,000 by 1994. We then started to get more problems, particularly recently, because a lot of people in the camps have got the impression, entirely erroneously, that if they stay in Hong Kong they'll at some stage in the future be resettled in the United States, and that's an impression which they've got because of the legislation which some American Congressmen have put through Congress.

Now that's giving people a very wrong impression. I don't want anybody to get the wrong end of the stick. I want all of them to recognise that the only option for them is to return to Vietnam. If they stay, they're not going to find themselves with homes in America or homes in Europe or homes in Britain or homes in Australia. The only option they have is to return to Vietnam and we will be pursuing that policy as vigorously and effective, and of course humanely as we can. People in Hong Kong have shown --

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Speaker: Governor, while you are reviewing the achievements we have made in this respect over the years, I think what we are most concerned about is that the problem will not be resolved before 1997. In the last few years Mr Rifkind has said in the last few days we're told that we are actually the victims. I mean do you think that the interests of Britain and the interests of Hong Kong are unanimous on this issue?

Governor: Yes, I do actually. And what Mr Rifkind was doing, and what I'm always keen to focus on, is the extremely ill-advised nature of those arguments which suggest that if the Vietnamese migrants simply hang around in the camps they're going to be able to go somewhere else other than Vietnam in 1997. They're not. It gives them entirely the wrong impression to say now or to suggest now that if only they stay till the middle of 1997 then they can go to Europe or then they can go to the United States. Those options don't exist, so they should home.

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Speaker: But the question is that, are the interests of Britain and those of Hong Kong unanimous on the question of the Boat People? You said yes just now.

Governor: I think our interests are the same. What we are all keen on doing is dealing for once and for all with this problem, which we've been very successful in dealing with in the past. What we want to see is all the Vietnamese migrants returned as soon as possible. That's what the UNHCR is working for, that's what Hong Kong is working for, that's what Britain and the international community is working for. We'll soon, I think, be having another international meeting to review progress and I hope that that will give some more impetus to the return of migrants. As I said earlier, we were making very good progress in 1992 and 1993 and we want to see that progress resumed.