'CONFIDENTIAL
3.
ํา
bribed, "re content to turn a blind eye to attempts by ethnic Chinese to leave: they are less likely to do so for Vietnamese. There is much scope for deceit and
betrayal.
6.
For those who manage to get away in a boat the chances of survival are generally considered to be about 50%. The boats are often far too frail for seas encountered outside coastal waters. Their engines are sometimes just the small Japanese diesel engines imported by the. thousand into the south in the late 1960s for the dual purpose of driving sampans and irrigating the fields of peasant farmers. Very often the boats have insufficient food and water. Sometimes they are
interconted by the Vietnamese Navy who, according to refugee reports, have opened fire and sunk such boats, killing and drowning many of the passengers.·
7.
Some statistical backing for the 50% chance of survival in a boat escare is provided by evidence I have obtained in connection with the charter plane-load of Hong Kong "belongers" we flew out of Ho Chi Minh City on 21 October. In the course
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of the many weeks of preparation for this plane, 120 people, who had been granted
entry visas to Hong Kong and who were in the process of being helped through the complicated exit formalities, disappeared. They probably did so for many and
言う。
complicated reasons (eg unwillingness to surrender all their possessions to the Vietnamese Government, the wish to take with them remote relatives who were unacceptable to the Hong Kong Government etc). It is reasonable to suppose that almost all of them chose to leave Vietnam by boat. It is also reasonable to suppose that all those who succeeded in reaching another country contacted their sponsors in ong Kong. In fact only 40 did 30. A few may have reached other countries and not informed their Hong Kong sponsors, and a few may after some weeks still be en route to their destinations. But allowing a very generous figure of 20 to cover such
Cases, only 60 of the 120 who most probably set off from Vietnam can be reckoned to
o alive. The chances of survival are well known to those who attempt the small bout
te, but in their desperation they still go.
235 JA KIINGTON, SIGHAPORE, KUALA LUMPUR, JAKARTA & UKMIS NEW YORK
301
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