Mr Male
Mr Williams, ODM
PS/Mrs Hart
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1.
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COMET DENTI AL
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188
RESETTLEMENT OF VIETNAMESE REFUGEES AT PRESENT IN HONG KONG
Mr McLean's minute of 2 June to Mr Baxter asks for a
note on this subject for Mrs Hart in due course. This will be prepared when we can see a little further than at present.
2.
Meanwhile the Minister may care to see the attached interim report. The general position is that resettlement is proceeding very slowly and homes are still needed for the majority of the refugees. The UNHCR is considering offering assistance and his good offices may help in the task of persuading some potential recipient governments e.g. Australia, to take some of the refugees.
3.
During the conversation referred to in the second paragraph of Mr McLean's minute, Mr Timms of this Department drew Mr McLean's attention to the views of the Governor of Hong Kong on the possibility that some of the refugees might wish to return to Vietnam (Hong Kong telno. 507). You will see that so far only one refugee has expressed a wish to return to Vietnam and there is some doubt even about this. It is perhaps a little bet early to judge but it seems unlikely that voluntary repatriation will provide a part answer to the problem. (Compulsory repatriation is, of course, out of the question.) A PRG representative in Hanoi has told us that 11 employees of the former South Vietnam Government now in Hong Kong have asked permission to return to Vietnam; but these are not, of course, among the refugees housed in the transit
camps.
4.
The points made in the Governor's telno. 525 had occurred to us before submitting the case for helping Hong Kong in this matter. We were anxious that HMG's initial contribution would not be so high as to tempt other governments into taking the easy way out by following suit rather than providing homes; and that
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