TNAG-0559-FCO40-654-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-othe-1975 — Page 249

RESTRICTED

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1

288

Telephone 01-

Your reference IMG

Our reference

75 58/1026/20

НКК 18/25

12 September 1975

PL Taylor Esq

Home Office

Lunar House

(Ext 2341)

Date

Wellesley Road

Croydon

Draw Ingles. дизви

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG

1.

LABT REF.

279

NEXT

REF.

Thank you for your letter of 29 August.

I delayed

my reply because I wanted to emphasise that it was our understanding that the Home Office were already considering applications from 75 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong and not, as you imply in your letter, 71. The Governor's telegram number VISA 38 of 25 July should have been passed to you on receipt. However, it is unfortunately not clear from our Migration and Visa Department's records whether this was done; and I had to wait some time before receiving the further copy which I now enclose (Hong Kong telegram 28 number VISA 55).

2.

3.

Also, I heard that there was already an additional group of 78 refugees wishing to settle in this country; and I enclose further details which we have just received from Hong Kong.

Whatever the Home Secretary's decision on the first 75 applications or, indeed, on the total of 153 now received, there can of course be no guarantee that more of the refugees will not ask to come here. Nevertheless, there has been no suggestion, either from this Department or from the Hong Kong Government, that the UK might be a haven of last resort for the whole residue who have nowhere else to go. The crucial point, as I explained on the telephone, is that unless and until the refugees wanting to come. here are allowed to do so, we are effectively unable to assist Hong Kong in any new diplomatic initiative to seek homes (in the United States or elsewhere) for the rest. Moreover, the continuing delay is the subject of increasingly embarrassing criticism in Hong Kong which, in the absence of a favourable decision, would almost certainly give rise to questions in Parliament after the recess.

4.

I very much hope you will be able to recommend that the Home Secretary should agree to early admission of the 153 (less, of course, any of the first 75 who have now found permanent homes elsewhere). In the circumstances, I am not recommending a further minute from the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary at this stage.

Your sincisely,

haunere Wh

PL O'Keeffe

RESTRICTED Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.

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