Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
Telephone 01-
268
Miss Sylvia von Eltz
Sandhamnsg. 21/IV S-11540 Stockholm Sweden
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Date
HKK 14/5
21 August 1974
Dear Madam,
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You wrote to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on 11 August enclosing a letter which Mr Baker had addressed to the President of the Republic of Vietnam on 6 August, about the group of 118 illegal immigrants from South Vietnam who were repatriated to Saigon from Hong Kong on 17 June.
The 118 were only returned to Saigon after the Vietnamese Government had given assurances that nothing serious would happen to members of the group who were victims of the syndicate which had smuggled them out of Vietnam, and that cases of violation of Vietnam's immigration/emigration laws would be tried in open court and would not be harshly punished. After the 118 had been repatriated, it was found that one member, who had given a false name in Hong Kong, had previously been condemned to death on smuggling charges. He has since been re-tried and sentenced, instead, to life imprisonment.
Twenty-seven of the remaining 117 (comprising women, children and old people) have now been released, and the remainder are being held in prisons in or near Saigon while they await trial. The group have thus all left Con Son Island.
You may like to know that, following further representations made on the group's behalf by HM Ambassador in Saigon, the Vietnamese Government issued on 30 July the following statement:
"The British Ambassador called to express his Government's concern about the apparently conflicting press reports of the assurances given to the British and Hong Kong Governments about the 118 illegal immigrants repatriated from Hong Kong.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Vietnam reaffirmed to the British Ambassador in the Republic of Vietnam what he had already informed the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, Mr Hattersley: namely that the 118 illegal emigrants who had been repatriated from Hong Kong are being treated fairly and will be tried in open court in the normal way according to the laws of this country. It is not expected that these illegal emigrants would receive any exceptional punishment."
Yours faithfully,
B.H. Sincially.
B H Dinwiddy
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
silent cc:
Chancery, STOCKHOLM
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