CONFIDENTIAL
As you know, the Vietnamese Government said at the
Geneva conference that they would halt the outflow of
refugees "for a reasonable period". The UNHCR also said
that his officials would be in touch with IMCO about the
safety at sea aspect of the refugee problem. In these
we
circumstances it is greatly to be hope that the
difficulties which have faced British and other shipowners
in recent months will be much less acute
in future,
and that IMCO may come up with some measure of internation
al agreement which may help to spread the load.
One
bein possibility which has come under discussed is that S
nelugees
Picked up
could be disembarked at the international
processing centres to whose establishment the
conference gave some impetus.
The Government's objectives must remain to save life
wherever possible, to relieve the shipowners dilemma in which they are placed by the problem of the boat people, to provide the maximum help for Hong Kong, and to avoid taking any more refugees into this country than we have
already agreed to accept. In practice, should any more
ships cases arise, we may well find ourselves with no
alternative to giving the now customary guarantee that
we will take the refugees as a Last resort. But we doubt
whether we should go as far as to give an undertaking
to do so automatically, at least until it becomes clear
how the situation will develop. We hope therefore that
Mr Nott will feel able to write to Mr Ropner on the lines
that his point is well taken and that, in practice, the quota will be administered in such
to allow for
the possibility that we may have to accept at short
rotice refugees picked up by a British flag vessel.
/We
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