TNAG-0558-FCO40-653-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-othe-1975 — Page 17

PERSONAL

布政司署

CONFIDENTIAL

252

香港下亞畢道

本署檔號 OUR REF.:

SCR 1/4821/75

* YOur Ref.:

P L O'Keeffe Esq CVO

Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept F CO

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY Ho. $1

11 AUG 1975

COLONIAL SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

6 August, 1975

HKK 18/201

Sew Lanfare

235

REF

259

Ental

Mr Deworldly Bun

Allway dentealing what the time offere now up to?

C.S. 41A

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

to the FCO.

2.

235

Please refer to our telegram No. 676 of 10 July

The Acting Dutch Consul-General has just rung me to say that, while his government are in principle still examining the question of helping Vietnamese refugees, none of the 80 applications made by refugees in the camps here can be considered for immediate resettlement in Holland since there is no evidence of the applicants having any special relationship with the Netherlands or anyone living there. Apparently the Dutch Government are keen to avoid a colony of expatriate Vietnamese being established in Holland. This is rather depressing news, because what it means in effect is that the Dutch are unwilling to accept that the problem of the Vietnamese refugees is an international one or that their ordinary immigration criteria should in any way be relaxed in order to give the refugees assistance. I do not know whether there is any further effort which our Embassy in The Hague might be able to make in order to persuade the Dutch authorities to consider these 80 applications more favourably. One telling point which the Embassy might use is that the Belgians, Germans and Swiss have already accepted some refugees from our camps here and the Danes and Austrians are both intending to accept about 100 refugees each from Hong Kong. Perhaps you could consider whether another approach in The Hague would be of any use at this stage.

3.

However, one difficulty which further representations in The Hague or elsewhere are likely to encounter is if the authorities approached ask what Britain has done to help Hong Kong in this matter. I apologise for harping on this point, but I have just come out of an Executive Council meeting where there was some very sarcastic comment, particularly by senior Chinese Unofficials, on the fact that none of the Vietnamese refugees here have yet been accepted by Britain. I fear that

/Contd...

CONFIDENTIAL