10/3
CONFIDENTIAL
BRITISH EMBASSY
SAIGON
27 August 1974
R B Crowson Esq
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department Foreign & Commonwealth Office London SW1
Dear Crowson.
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ILLEGAL EMIGRANTS
1.
R& R & R
8
Dos 30/8
I was glad to have a copy of your letter to Anne Warburton, HKK 14/5 of 15 August, together with enclosures. May I make one point on the latter? This is that letters from Ministers to Amnesty are important evidence for me on how to deal with this case and it is useful to see them as soon as possible. In fact, the two in question, from Lord Goronwy-Roberts of 5 and 7 August, reached me only (as enclosures) on 23 August. It is not only that I have to be prepared to talk on the subject to the Foreign Minister on any occasion that I may meet him, but there are also other ramifications my Australian and Dutch colleagues, the local press, the letters from the Vietnamese Ambassador in the "New Statesman". etc.
2. I am surprised that we have heard nothing yet from the Sanguinetti visit. Perhaps he found no real evidence in Saigon to support the Amnesty case, or at least no evidence which they would like to risk quoting to British Ministers.
3.
Meanwhile I might perhaps venture two comments on the correspondence with Amnesty. First, Ennals' letter of
1 August to the Foreign Secretary quoted reports as including a 4-year old girl and a 12-year old boy among those who had died in Con Son. My list of the prisoners from Hong Kong indicates no children of precisely this age, though I find listed a girl of 5 (No 14) and a boy of 11 (No 5).
It may perhaps be considered rather facile to tell Amnesty on this basis that they have their facts wrong, but I have no doubt that they find this story of children good emotional stuff and it may be as well to use all means to bring them back to earth. I suppose, incidentally, that if the question of the children were taken up seriously by Amnesty it might not be impossible to have them produced here to, eg, Reuters. tunately, the foreign press here seem quite disinterested in the whole story!
4.
For-
Secondly, I notice that Ennals' letter of 7 August to Goronwy-Roberts speaks of the "remaining deportees in Con Son
/prison".
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CONFIDENT I AL
2010
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