TNAG-0587-FCO40-720-Aid-from-UK-for-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 189

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VIETNAMESE REFUGELS

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You wanted to see the reports which the UK Mission in Geneva have received from the UNHCR's office about the number of Vietnamese refugees who have arrived at various ports in South-East Asia and the Far East over the past year or so. These reports are enclosed with Mr Callway's letter of 26 July at folio 100 (figures for Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore) and with his compliments slip of 28 July at folio 118 (figures for Japan). Figures for Thailand, where several boat-loads of refugees are reported to have arrived recently, are not yet available. Nor of course, do the UNHCR's figures take account, for example, of the 19 refugees on the Panamanian vessel the "Meiabeto" (Hong Kong Tel No 773), and the 33 aboard the Shell tanker bound for Japan (my minute of 4 August).

2. It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from the figures provided by the UNHCR. In many cases information is lacking about whelterrefugees were allowed to land temporarily at different ports of call and, still less is it known, how many refugees have actually been re-settled, either in countries where they have been temporarily landed or elsewhere. It does seem, however, that Hong Kong is not by any means the only, or necessarily the principal, port of call for ships which pick up Vietnamese refugees. Clearly, a ship picking up Vietnamese refugees will tend to go on to its next scheduled port of call unless perhaps the Master is aware that there is no chance of his landing refugees there. On the other hand, by virtue of accepting the 4,000/5,000 refugees aboard the (?) Danish vessel "Clara Maersk" in the spring of last year, it looks as though Hong Kong has temporarily

The UNHCR's landed a larger total number of refugees than anyone else. figures do, however, as I have said, exclude Thailand and it sounds, from the letter of 14 July which the Standing Conference of British Organisations for Aid to Refugees wrote to Mr Luard (folio 66), that Thailand is faced with a more acute problem than any other country. 3. You may also wish to see the draft of the UNHCR's scheme for dealing with ship-borne refugees, enclosed with Mr Callway's letter of 28 July at folio 102. The difficult point for us in the scheme, which is primarily designed to deal with Vietnamese refugees (but has a world-wide application), would appear to be that in paragraph 7(a) whereby participating governments would inform the UNHCR of their willingness to grant re-settlement visas at one month's notice, if possible, to refugees (or displaced persons) arriving at ports either on their own boats or on ships which have rescued them.

In the case

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of the refugees on the "Clara Maersk", the Home Office took five months to decide that they could offer re-settlement to 150-odd of these refugees.

4. So far as we in this department are concerned, I think we can only continue to urge that some international scheme should be worked out but we will have to leave it to the Home Office to decide what is or is not acceptable from HMG's point of view. I myself am indined

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