TNAG-0894-FCO40-1104-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 160

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4. The first reason is purely tactical: it would be damaging if Vietnam could claim that its attempts to cooperate in solving the

problem had been brushed aside.

5. More fundamentally, the whole logic of our position is that while Vietnam should not behave so callously towards the refugees and those affected by the outflow, we cannot be heard to argue that the latter should be prevented but only that it should be

controlled.

6.

The main objection to orderly departure, that it would permit and even encourage the continuing outflow and take pressure off Vietnam to reverse policies which cause it, applies hardly less to other palliative measures and L

lies at the root of the conference as arranged. One of our primary objectives should certainly be to maintain pressure on Vietnam, but the unfortunate fact is that there are few grounds for expecting results. Moreover on the humanitarian side, proposals for more resettlement places and money, reception and transit centres, and safety at sea, might mitigate the worst problems but would not by themselves provide a systematic solution. The only such solution which might be attainable would

seem to lie

to lie in an expanded orderly departure programme binding on

all parties.

:

a

7. For these reasons I recommend that we should be prepared at suitable point in the conference, and provided that Vietnam gives sufficient sign of good faith, to give open support for an orderly departure programme and should make it our aim to find ways round the difficulties rather than use them as reasons for rejecting

the whole idea.

!

16 July 1979

Promen

RP Flower

South East Asian Department

CONFISKin