Mr Wall
LETTER FROM THE RT HON ANTHONY WEDGWOOD BENN: VIETNAMESE "BOAT PEOPLE"
590
Filling of 304 82354+ HKK243/1
30
Mr Reith's submission (attached) of 24 April and your manuscript minute of the same date (also attached).
по
and
2.5
K
2
(MIT)
I re-submit the draft letter, from the Secretary of State to Mr Benn, incorporating your amendments and further amended by HK&GD to take account of the point in your minute: under reference, ie that we should make something of what Hong Kong have done. HK&GD and SEAD concur.
3
I am happy that we should not send Mr Benn the League table, but by excising the whole of the passage in paragraph 5 the previous draft from "the British contribution" to the end of that paragraph, you ignore Mr Frampton's suggestion that we should help organize the transfer of Indo-China refugees to underpopulated countries needing unskilled labour. You could cover this by inserting the following paragraph after the new paragraph about Hong Kong:
"I note Mr Frampton's suggestion that the refugees' true interests might be better served by organizing
their transfer to underpopulated countries interested in getting more unskilled labour, and that financial aid should be provided to facilitate this. Repeated
appeals have been made by the UNHCR, ourselves, and some other governments to Latin American countries, that some of whom might be regarded as under-populated, but there has been almost no response so far.
If any
countries made financial assistance a condition of
accepting a number of Indo-China refugees, then I have
no doubt the international community, including the
United Kingdom, would consider what they could do to
/help
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.