2.
As regards paragraph 2 of your minute, we do know from a lette hich Mr Drace-Francis, the Assistant Political Adviser in Hong Kong, wrote to HM Embassy, Hanoi on 8 June (copied to SEAD and HKD) that the eight refugees from last year who have asked to return to Vietnam (K Tel No 323, paragraph 1) were still in Hong Kong at that time. There are no grounds for thinking that these eight are not still in Hong Kong. I agree that we do not appear to have up-to- date information about the other twenty-nine refugees left over from last year.
In the meantime, Hong Kong have allowed nineteen Vietnamese refugees aboard the British tanker "Cree" to remain in Hong Kong temporarily until they are found permanent settlement elsewhere. (This batch of refugees is referred to in one of the lists attached to the letter of 26 July from Mr Callway in the UK Mission in Geneva and copied to you, I think, by Mr Morgan.) In addition, as Hong Kong have told us in connection with the "Ava" affair, there has continued to be a steady inflow of illegal immigrants from Vietnam.
3. I should be reluctant to ask Hong Kong, at least at this stage, how many of the refugees from last year, ie those landed from the "Clara Maersk" are still with them. I fear that they might take it as an indication of a possible willingness on our part to give sympathetic consideration to re-settlement in this country of those who may not, in the meantime, have gone elsewhere. I would prefer to concentrate now on exploring the possibility of the Home Office doing something for the refugees from the "Ava" On that front, the next step is still partly up to Hong Kong, ie to let us have some idea, when possible, of those refugees, if any, who are not expected to go to the. United States or elsewhere.
E.F. Millim
D F Milton
Hong Kong Department
29 July 1976
K 274
·233 4381
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