TNAG-0794-FCO40-998-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1978 — Page 112

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Vietnamese Refugees 15 DECEMBER 1978

[Mr. Luard.] appeal of the same kind to the masters of all ships.

Secondly, it is important that the Gov- ernments of the countries from which the ships come should be ready in the final resort to accept refugees picked up in that way.

We have said that if such refugees are not resettled within three months we shall allow them to stay here. Quite a large proportion of those whom we are now receiving come to us in that way.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will Vietnam take them back?

Mr. Luard: I shall come to that a little later. I agree that it would be the ideal solution.

Thirdly, the Governments of the coun- tries to which such ships next go, the port States, should allow the refugees to land at the next port of call and not demand a guarantee that they have acceptance elsewhere in order to do so. We have been doing that, and the Government of Hong Kong have done it for a consider- able period. The Government of Japan have at last agreed to do it. Not all Gov- ernments do, and that is the cause of

some of our difficulties. It is important that such an undertaking should be given. Otherwise, captains will be unwilling to pick up refugees, as they clearly should.

I come now to the second and more general problem, which is the next stage when these people are able to land and settle in particular countries. Those coun- tries are principally Thailand and Malaysia which are at present under- taking a quite inequitable burden on behalf of the entire internantional com- munity. It is unfair that they have to do that when the problem is not one of their making. They are becoming-I can report this from the conference-increas- ingly resentful about having to take on the burden, and increasingly insistent that other countries, particularly but not only Western countries, should undertake to accept some of the refugees.

It is totally disproportionate for Thai- land to have 140,000 refugees and Malay- sia 40,000. Fortunately, these countries do not have to shoulder much of the financial burden. Most of the financial

cost is undertaken by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But there is a considerable political problem

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for them, particularly for Malaysia, in that, whether these refugees are of Chinese of Vietnamese stock, they add to the racial tensions. It is therefore important that other countries should agree to take refugees. That was the major single topic that was discussed at the Geneva conference earlier this week. The United Nations High Commissioner was most anxious to secure additional offers of this kind, and a substantial number of offers was made.

Representatives at the conference, mainly from the United States, Australia, France and other Western countries, men- tioned offers of about 80,000 places in their territories. Some of these have been made before, and I believe that there were only about 5,000 totally new offers. However, in itself that was quite satis- factory.

I regret that we were not able to make a specific offer, but I was able to report to the conference that we are at present urgently and sympathetically consider- ing what we can do to help. However, we already have a substantial problem. About 70,000 immigrants come to this country each year, of whom over 20,000 are from Asia. There are a few from

other parts of the New Commonwealth. I do not want to go into the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). He grossly exag- gerated the present extent of immigration into this country; he almost doubled the total number of immigrants in this country. I do not want to get involved in that discussion because it is totally irre- levant to our debate.

We have these responsibilities, how- ever, and I believe that there was con- siderable understanding at the conference of our special difficulties and problems. There is, of course, the hope that we will be able to do more. I hope that we shall, as does the United States. However, we have already made something of a commitment by saying that we shall take on all of those who are picked up by British ships, if it is necessary to take them on.

That could add up certainly to several hundred or possibly, as the hon. Member for Beckenham said, a thousand in a year.

The conference was also concerned about offers of financial assistance. Fairly substantial offers were made.

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