TNAG-0890-FCO40-1100-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 33

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inGeeva on 18 June.

CON

CONFIDENTIAL

In the meantime the Lord Privy

Seal recommends that the Prime Minister should send

messages to the Malaysian Prime Minister and the UN

Secretary General along the lines of those in the attached

draft telegrams to Kuala Lumpur and New York. The

Lord Privy Seal has also instructed Mr Cortazzi to

summon the Acting Malaysian High Commissioner to express

our serious concern over the humanitarian implications

Dr

of Datuk Mahathir's statement.

4.

In forwarding these drafts the Lord Privy Seal has asked me to point out that we are getting into an increasingly exposed international position and that

we shall be under more and more pressure to give generous financial aid to the UNHCR and to take a new quota of

refugees. The Hong Kong Government's humane policies will become increasingly difficult to maintain unless

we ourselves show a similarly humane attitude.

1

}