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otherwise they would not be accepted for resettlement; so they had then offered Rempang Island. They had now offered Galang Island,
It was
just to the south of Rempang which was even more suitable. Advantages of Galang (636 sq km) over Rempang (830 sq km) were that it had only 200 inhabitants (60 of whom worked at a saw mill, the rest being fishermen) as against 2,335 on Rempang; and that its basic infrastructure had been developed first as a prisoner-of-war camp for the Japanese in 1945 and then by a company (Maine Trust) as a pineapple-growing project which had since collapsed. Hence there were flat fields and only light tropical vegetation. not swampy like Rempang, and had fresh water 10 feet below the surface. It had a boat-landing stage and there were air-landing strips on nearby Batam and Bintang. There was easy access to Singapore. In brief Galang was an ideal island for a refugee centre; UNHCR agreed and would shortly be sending out a team to make a feasibility study (map attached). Mr Mochtar added that he was confident of receiving contributions, in kind as well as in cash, for the improvement of the island. For example, the Koreans, who had works projects under contract close by, had offered to help in construction. The Japanese too were anxious to be of assistance.
4. Mr Mochtar confirmed that those invited to the Jakarta meeting were the ASEAN countries, all the major resettlement countries, plus Brazil, Korea and Vietnam. The Vietnamese had already accepted, though in rather defensive terms. Sir James Murray said that Hong Kong would certainly welcome an invitation. Mr Mochtar responded that this would be difficult; it would arouse controversy both locally and in ASEAN.
5. Mr Mochtar went on to say that he felt that Mr de Haan (UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner) had rather exaggerated the benefit flowing from his visit to Hanoi. Unlike the Malaysians, the Indonesians knew how to handle the Vietnamese, talking their own (Communist!) language, and he was slowly bringing the Vietnamese round to co-operate with ASEAN in finding solutions. As an example, he handed over a transcript of an interview on 13 April between Pham van Dong and the official Indonesian News Agency in which
/Pham
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