TNAG-0883-FCO40-1093-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 184

B

:

lesettlement

CONFIDENTIAL

3 -

DSR 11C

f

We do not intend to answer all the questions in the now dayan hurent on 31 Janmaung UNHCR informal working paper (which we copied to you oupling);

there have, in any case, been further developments since the

paper was issued, particularly the current visit of the

Deputy UNHCR to Hanoi and to some ASEAN countries about which

we should be receiving reports in due course' (the first of

these is in Bangkok telno 16 enclosed). We shall avoid

at this staged

commenting on which classes of refugees should be allowed to go

but

we

5

chid

whit to

avoid

to the island, [leaving this to the UNFCR to sort out formulation which excluded

7

any of thin

CIA

Hong Kong

"

With regard to the call by ASEAN states for blanket

resettlement guarantees for all who may go to the island, we

should like to be able to say, subject to your concurrence

that the UK would, with other countries, agree to consider

admitting to Britain a small quota of refugees from the island.

as part of any extra commitment to be shared by the inter-

national community. I realise that any eventual decision on

further admissions of Indo-Chinese refugees to Britain, beyond

what we are doing at present, will require collective

ministerial consultation in advance, but I hope you could

agree, at this stage, to our using the formula I have proposed.

We do not dispute that any British association, however limited

with the island proposal is likely, in the longer term at any

rate, to increase the pressure on us to admit further groups

of refugees. I think we must all accept this as a fact of

life, though we should naturally wish to keep any admissions

in future to an absolute minimum, if possible linking them

to refugees who had reached the island from particular

territories such as Hong Kong, Malaysia or Thailand.

CONFIDENTIAL

/Finance

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