TNAG-0654-FCO40-803-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 123

416 #

H of "C

TRIVED IN FREESTRY NO. 14

19 AUG 1977

PA.

110

Pi copy to Mr Hughey, SERD

Mr. Carter, Hong Kong.

FA 341.11

The Goldsmith The Suncui

To see, esp

рельсе

pance -22%

to see.

12/2

X

VISIT TO SAİGON

w/e

1. The 14th special flight left on 10 August with 170 passengers on board.

+

2. During a meeting with Mr Chadderton and Mr Maideen, the former told us that, because an unusually large proportion of the application to enter Hong Kong currently being considered were likely to be. refused, there may be some difficulty in providing enough names to fill four flights during September. The provisional dates for these flights were 9, 16, 23 and 30 September but Mr Chadderton had spoken to CPA who were prepared to lay on a Tristar at the end of the month to clear any backlog which might result from the cancellation of the earlier flights.

3. Mr Chadderton also told us that the seven applications for entry to Macao (involving seats being provided on a special flight and transit facilities being granted by the Hong Kong Government) had been refuged by the Macão authorities. Mr Maideen asked Mr Chadderton not to mention this to the Vietnamese authorities; he was afraid that to do so would result in them turning nasty. It was not clear to me what would be gained from not telling them since they are pressing for information about the progress of the applications and must be told soon. I asked Mr Maideen about this later but all that he would any was that it was better to put it off for a while.

4. We were joined for a short time by Messrs Tuyen, Thanh and Long from External Affairs. They were mainly concerned to extract from Mr Chadderton a list of those applicants for entry to Hong Kong who were likely to be successful. This, they said, was needed so that those who had applied need not hold out any hope if they were not to be allowed to leave. It would also be helpful to External Affairs in that 'arrangements' could then be made for those who were not to be given entry visas. Mr Chadderton replied that the Hong Kong Government were doing all they could but pointed out that the more time that was spent in trying to discover which applications were likely to be approved, the less manpower there was available to actually approve them. For his part, he would rather their efforts were concentrated in issuing final approvals than indicating provisional ones. Mr Tuyen then asked the Hong Kong Government to concentrate their resources in processing applications from those of Chinese, rather than Vietnamese, origins. Mr Chadderton said that nearly all of those applications which would be approved would be from those in the former category.

5. Mr Tuyen then said that the Vietnamese were not anxious to see the flights continue for much longer. Air France were to wind up their operation on 29 September; what about us ? Mr Chadderton said that it was difficult to judge but spoke in terms of a maximum of unother eighteen flights, which would take us to the end of the year at the present rate. The Vietnamese looked doubtful it may be that they will seek to impose some sort of deadline which will curtail the operation before then.'

6. When the flight was about to leave, Mr Maideen and I were prevented from boarding the aircraft by the airport security authorit- ies. Mr Maideen protested to the Chief of Security who was there an

RESTRICTED