DEPARTMENT OF TRADE
1 VICTORIA STREET LONDON SW1H OET
Telephone 01-215 7877
CONFIDENTIAL
S J Gomersall Esq
From the Secretary of State
Private Secretary to the
Lord Privy Seal
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Whitehall
SW1
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Miss BIRCON MR. Murray SLP).
10 August 1979
YAT 1218.
Dear Stephen
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
In Tom Harris' absence I am replying to your letter of 2 August about Mr kopner's letter of 16 July to the Secretary of State. Following Tom's letter of 17 July to Bryan Cartledge you will not be surprised to know that the Secretary of State does not consider that a reply along the lines you suggest will go any way to alleviating the shipping industry's concerns, which are underlined by the latest case of the RUDDBANK.
The measures to which you refer in paragraph 3 are essentially hypothetical. It is true that at the Geneva Conference Vietnam authorised Dr Waldheim to say that for "a reasonable period" every effort would be made to stop illegal departures but it is not clear how long the moratorium will last or how effective the efforts will be. It is true that Dr Waldheim stressed the importance of re- establishing the principle of first asylum but it remains to be seen whether certain littoral states will now adhere to this without requiring, as hitherto, firm guarantees of resettlement from the flag state. There is indeed to be a meeting of experts to concert arrangements for "active" rescue at sea but as you know we have considerable reservations about this (which UNHCR staff privately share) since we think it can only encourage illegal emigration by sea and thus possibly lead to more deaths than it saves. similar meeting is yet arranged to discuss "passive" rescue but it is in any case not easy to see what help such a meeting can be to British shipping beyond serving as a further reminder to other flag states of their masters' obligations, of which most of them are aware as a result inter alia of the Conference itself. It is true that Dr Waldheim referred in his closing remarks to the establishment of temporary holding centres but even these could cause problems for shipowners in connection with the contractual law of deviation from normal routes, as our brief for the Conference indicated.
No
contd/.
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