Registry
No.
ECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret:
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DRAFT
letter
To:-
JP Tripp Esq CMG British Embassy
BANGKOK
୮
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Type 1 +
From
Mr. Figg
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
DSR 11
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
1. Thank you for your letter of 21 August.
2.
I take your point that very careful consideration indeed
will need to be given to the question of any help we may be
able to offer over the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees.
Apart from the problem in Malaysia and Thailand, we have to
consider the very special case of Hong Kong where there are now.
over 3,500 "small boat" refugees in urgent need of resettlement.
The colony has, as it were, been penalised because of its
liberal attitude towards the reception of refugees. Since
!
Hong Kong, unlike many other territories in the region, does
? normally
not/demand guarantees (of resettlement) from countries whose
ships arrive at its port with refugees aboard, the main
countries' of final asylum (the USA and others) appear to be
concentrating their efforts on receiving for resettlement those refugees who have been put ashore at other ports where the authorities are less flexible in their approach to the
problem and have been demanding guarantees of third countries:
you will have seen Ian Orr's letter to me of 22 August.
Bi
T
We are now discussing with the Home Office what, if any,
further steps we can take to help over the "small boat"
refugees and shall keep you informed. An important factor we
have to take account of here is the constraints (physical and
/financial)
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