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[Lord Elton.]
Indo-China:
[LORDS]
themselves are challenges of immense magnitude if they are to be actualised within the time frame of one generation which we promised ourselves. If the problem of the boat people is added to this then our vision of a united, democratic and ajust society that will be Malaysia will become an impossible dream ".
Next door, in Singapore, the problem is minimised by strict regulation. There is an arbitrary ceiling of 1,000 refugees in camp at any one time, and the thousand and first has his boat repaired and is asked to move on. I shall not comment further on that because I am not familiar with the situation-I did not see it.
We then come to another small State, Hong Kong, about which the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, will be speaking later. I will tell your Lordships by way of pre- amble that 6,460 refugees had arrived before the "Huey Fong" and the "Tung An" had dropped anchor. There were 8,000 awaiting settlement when "Skyluck" arrived with perhaps 3,000 on board. We do not yet know. There were over 5,000 arrivals in 1978, and there have been as many again this year. If you know Hong Kong you will realise that 13,000 unheralded arrivals in addition to the normal influx is a serious matter. The city is already as full of people as a hive of bees, and into that hive moves continuous stream. Hong Kong had absorbed 100,000 arrivals from mainland China last year alone. That flood alone places a huge strain on the education, health, housing, and other social services of the Colony. Many other communities would regard that alone as an intolerable situation, but they bear it without com- plaint. To add a new source of immigra- tion, and one with no very obvious limit, causes alarm even among that stoic people. They have done well to accept it. They are right to look for assistance.
a
In a forceful leader last Friday the South China Morning Post expressed a point of view which may come as a surprise to many in this country. The writer is referring to a belief that we here expect that, thanks to British representa- tions, the Vietnamese may limit the exodus from their country to 1,000 a month. I dare say that the noble Lord will have something to say about this when he replies. I quote:
"while officially the Hanoi Government may invent some purchasable exit permit for such a number, the unofficial exodus is like to continue
Refugee Problem
1336 indefinitely, as it has done with China. For in neither country are officials capable of controlling the exodus. Nor do they show much interest in doing so
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I think this is what your Lordships need to take on board:
..
As for the woeful record of overseas countries in receiving refugees from Vietnam for resettle- ment, it must be strongly doubted that the Skyluck's arrival or indeed that of any other vessel, will make any appreciable difference.
For there is no reason to doubt that Hong Kong's benevolent attitude will be as cynically exploited by the prosperous Western (and Asian) countries who could relieve us of a large part of this problem as by those who have saddled us and other parts of Southeast Asia with it ".
I shall return to this view and what I think our reply should be at the end of my speech.
If, my Lords, that is still a little distant pray be patient. It is a very heavy tale I must tell, and I cannot hurry with it. Let us look at the origins of this astonish- ing phenomenon, What possible reason can there be for half a million people to flee from one pleasant, beautiful,- and fertile corner of the world? Why should 100,000 families abandon their homes and the whole of their property and fling themselves on the mercy of total strangers? In Cambodia we saw a kind of madness in which one part of the nation gained the upper hand and was caught up in killing the other, and freely admitting to one million corpses as the price their fellow countrymen had to pay for not sharing their political views. A grim total, amounting to total, amounting to one in every six people who had survived the war in that country. In Vietnam I believe the disease to be the same, but it takes a colder and more calculating form and I think it takes longer to work itself out.
Last Saturday I visited some refugees who arrived three weeks ago from Vietnam. They were boat people. One of the minority of this vast tide who are boat people. Let me tell your Lordships a typical story. A tailor and his wife had eight children and a shop in Saigon. When Saigon fell and the Communists took power the police came and they boarded up the shop and removed the stock, and the next day they put the family, the tailor and his wife and his eight children, on a lorry and they drove 96 miles into the forest. When they let the tailboard down they said, “This is a new economic zone". It looked like
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