TNAG-0792-FCO40-996-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1978 — Page 123

CONFIDENTAL

BY BAG

I

186.

CR 2/4821/75

F MORGAN ESQ

UN DEPARTMEN♪ FCO

1

No

18:17038

PA

al

Vd

Or

XJONI

BOHO X930

8/613 8

SO I

HKK 243/1

9 September 1978

US NUMBERS FOR REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM in HONG KONG

Ed Kreuser of the US Consulate-General told me on 8 September that of the September tranche of 917 small boat refugee places, 305 have bean assigned to Hong Kong. Of these, 131 are in category I, 5 in category II and 169 in category III. Together with 87 in July and 163 in August, this means that 555 refugees at present in Hong Kong will definitely move to the US, probably within the next two months. (Some of the refugees have still to be processed, so this does not represent the total number of those at present in Hong Kong who will go to the US).

2.

Kreuser also gave me the September figures for all other places. Halaysia 340 (none in category ill),” Philippines - 102, Thailand - 86, Indonesia - 58, singapore -16, Japan-10, Taiwan and South Korea - nil. I doubt if the Americans generally make these overall figures available and they should therefore not be revealed elsewhere even to other American officials. Kreuser obtains the figures from the US Immigration & Naturalization service office here and there is some danger that if they learned that he was passing them on he would be instructed not to do

so.

3.

These figures provide encouraging evidence of the US effort to give more numbers to Hong Kong. Kreuser's interpretation was that in september category III numbers which might have gone to Malaysia (which has far more small boat refugees than us) were assigned to Hong Kong. I told him we vere extremely grateful for the efforts he has been making on our behalf.

CONFIDENTIAL

-/2.