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10/3
IMMEDIATE
RECEIVED
REGISTRY No.52
-7 AUG 1974
HILI4/5
A C Stuart Esq
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
London SW1
BRITISH EMBASSY
SAIGON
202
2 August 1974
LAST
RE:
170
NE
REF.
Drav Stuart.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO HONG KONG
1.
Thank you for your letter of 26 July on which I would like to clarify one point in paragraph 2: otherwise your requests seem to me normal business.
2. This is the request that we keep you informed on how the prisoners are being treated. I am afraid that this looks a pretty difficult, not to say impossible, task. Unless I were specifically instructed, I have no grounds for asking to visit the prisoners: nor indeed, I think, would it be wise for HMG to get involved in such an operation. Presumably any reports by the British Embassy would be liable to be used publicly and could immediately be questioned by individuals or organisations like Amnesty International. The alternative is to rely on enquiries made by us here at a suitable level and to accept the replies. This may not seem too satisfactory to you, but it seems to me the only practical way of proceeding. A case of death would equally be hard to verify, but on the assumption that a public trial or trials take place is unlikely to be concealed since we too can count heads.
3. I hope I can assume, incidentally, that I shall not be required to press for Sanguinetti to have access to prisoners in prison if he eventually comes here.
P
4. As to your first paragraph, I think I am well aware of the pressures your end Bill Squire has been very helpful in keeping me informed in this respect. My anxieties have really been much the same as Hong Kong's, namely that unless the statement was a good one from HMG's point of view, we might be merely stirring up a situation which was seeming to settle. However, for the time being at any rate, all seems well.
Furth
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John Bushen
J C W Bushell
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