CONFIDENTIAL
to be called by July. He also mentioned that the newly appointed UNHCR in Washington had initially commented/favourably to the Americans on the Prime Minister's proposal and had said that, any such conference should be run by the UNHCR itself. According to Freeman, the Americans had retorted that if the UNHCR was not enthusiastic there was no reason why they should run it, and it would be better to do it through the UN proper rather than risk a repetition of last December's arid process in Geneva since the issue was now inescapably political.
9.
Freeman said they had also been giving thought to how to induce other countries, eg in South America, to take Vietnam refugees. One possibility was economic development projects to open up virgin land or to establish a new industry with refugee labour, eg rice growing. He claimed that Costa Rica and Paraguay had responded positively to a Japanese approach for rice growing projects on this basis. Perhaps one might turn to the IBRD or some regional develop- ment loan institute for funding. The idea had been mentioned to McNamara some time ago who had seemed sympathetic but nothing much had come of it. At all events inducements would be necessary. The present refugee population in South East Asian camps was 320,000; it might be half a million by the end of the summer and possibly as much as one million next year.
10. Referring to Newsome's remark to Mr Blaker, I repeated the request already made both to State
for hard information on ships and money being organized from Hong Kong or any other.. aspect. Freeman did not give the impression of having much to offer on this score and said that as a China hand he was only too well aware of how difficult this kind of thing was to pin down. On the subject of intelligence, he referred to another "cloud on the horizon" (I am not sure whether he had a particular intelligence report in mind). He said that the direct arrival of any ship in Guam would precipitate an enormous battle within the Administration to ensure that any refugees on such a ship were counted against the 7,000 a month total from the area, and he feared that this view would prevail. There would be a backlash in. California where it was feared that refugees from. Vietnam were responsible for introducing tropical diseases such as intestinal parasites and tuberculosis. The fact was that with the closure of ASEAN countries the only destinations left were Hong Kong, Guam or Australia and he suspected that direct arrivals on US territory were "virtually a certainty at some point". He also added that the Indonesians were likely to deal with their problem by refitting refugee ships and passing them on to Australia.
11.
Thanking Freeman for the foregoing, I said firmly that he should not assume that Hong Kong could afford to remain an open door much longer.
13 June, 1979
CC:
Mr Carrick
Mr Soutar
Mushro
PJ Weston
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