TNAG-0883-FCO40-1093-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 51

Mr Murray

Mr Cortazzi

CONFIDENTIAL

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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG: UK LOBBYING OF OTHER GOVERNMENTS

1 Mr Cortazzi's minute of 13 March on Hong Kong telno 356 expressed the hope that we could pursue the question of obtaining additional resettlement offers from other countries.

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Mr Morgan's minute of 5 February (which was copied to APA, Hong Kong) recorded the disappointing response to the efforts we made in capitals to persuade other countries to take Vietnamese refugees now in Hong Kong. Since then, we have been alert to opportunities to remind countries showing signs of taking Vietnamese refugees of Hong Kong's special problems. A further approach in Wellington produced a non-commital response and we await a reaction from the Swedes. The PUS is briefed to lean on the Japanese this week.

3

We have ensured that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is well aware of Hong Kong's problems but he has, of course, to take into account also the problems posed by Vietnamese refugees in Thailand and Malaysia when discussing resettlement with governments who have offered places. We have kept Hong Kong's special difficulties well to the fore in discussion in Whitehall on other aspects of the problem,

including the proposed island refugee centre.

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It does not help that Home Office officials who travelled to Hong Kong in February in order to select 1,000 refugees for resettlement in the UK found that the majority have no desire to go to any country other than the US or, failing that, Canada. Conditions in Hong Kong's refugee camps are reasonable and the Hong Kong authorities are turning a blind eye to refugees who obtain work in the Colony. Thus, rather than lose sight of their ultimate goal of reaching the US by opting for an unknown future in Britain, refugees prefer to wait in the relatively comfortable and climatically familiar surroundings of Hong Kong. So far, only 412 refugees of the K quota of 1,000 have been selected. The risk remains that other countries who offered, at our urging, to take Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong might meet similar rebuffs. But that should not deter us from continuing to try to find permanent homes elsewhere for as many as we can.

21 March 1979

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Mr Leahy

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MK O Simpson-Orlebar United Nations Department