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CONFIDENTIAL
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機密
request the U.S., Canadian and French Governments to take the refugees off the ship. He was told that there were already several thousand refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement.
3rd January, 1979
Reuters from Taipei carried a report that the Chairman of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission had said that the Taiwan authorities would not accept the refugees aboard the "Huey Fong".
4th January, 1979
(a) The German Consul General repeated formally an offer from the City of Frankfurt to take 250 refugees from the "Huey Fong, or from those already in Hong Kong on condition that a significant number were landed from the ship in exchange. He was told that Hong Kong could not accept the offer in such a form since it would be an encouragement to others to act in the same way as the Master of the "Huey Fong". We said that we hoped that Frankfurt would make an unconditional offer to UNHCR to take some of the refugees who had been awaiting resettlement for a long time.
(b)
Police enquiries into the ownership of the "Huey Fong" showed that, contrary to the Taiwanese view expressed in the telegram at 7ppendix 3, the vessel was not Hong Kong owned.
5th January 1979
A four hour meeting took place on board HMS Wasperton between the UNHCR representative in Hong Kong, Mr. Rasanayagam, and the master of the "Huey Fong" accompanied by two representatives of the refugees. He told them that his appeal to the Hong Kong Government to land the refugees had been rejected and that he personally saw no chance of the Government relaxing its position. He said that the recent statement of policy by the Taiwanese was unclear; but his personal assessment was that Taiwan would find it difficult to refuse landing if the ship was to proceed to Kaohsiung. He explained that the offer from Frankfurt had been rejected but that this and any similar offers might be held available for the refugees if they were landed at the ship's first port of call. He thought it likely that further offers would be made and this would increase the chances of the refugees being allowed to land in Taiwan. He told them that the Government hed said that, if necessary, refugees of Vietnamese othnic origin could be flown from Taiwan to Hong Kong for processing. He urged the refugees' representatives to set up a group aboard the ship to discuss the position as he had explained it to them. He advised them to prepare family lists of the refugees.
6th January 1979
Press reports quoted a Panamanian Foreign Ministry Communique as stating that the "Huey Fong" had been struck off the Panama shipping register. No official notification of this was received,
CONFIDENTIAL #2
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