TNAG-0896-FCO40-1106-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 199

NOTE OF A MEETING HELD ON 2 AUGUST 1979

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

Present:

Mr Raison

Mr de Deney

Mr Angel

Mr Birt

Mr Fittall

Sir Leslie Kirkley Rev Graham Jackson Mr Kenneth Lee

Mrs Joyce Pearce

Mr William Shawcross

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1. The meeting had been arranged at the request of the Standing Conference on Refugees to discuss some of the implications of the Geneva conference.

2. Sir Leslie Kirkley expressed the concern of the voluntary organisations sponsoring the Save the Vietnamese Refugees campaign that the selection and reception of the 10,000 refugees Britain was to take should be expedited. They hoped that it

This wout d might be possible to exhaust the whole quota in the next nine months. mean that more people should join the selection team.going to Hong Kong, that more reception centres should be opened in this country and, passibly, that the Home Office should reinforce the co-ordination of the various agencies (central Government departments, local authorities, voluntary bodies) helping in the reception and resettlement operation. Conditions in Hong Kong were bad and there was the danger that delay would mean that those refugees eventually accepted would be the more demoralised. Pastor Peter Stumpf, who had worked in Hong Kong for many years had expressed at Geneva his concern over the onset of vice and racketeering amongst the refugees there.

3. Mr Raison said that he could not give a definitive estimate of the rate at which the refurees would arrive. The Government were anxious for the operation to proceed with all speed, consonant with the rate at which resettlement could be achieved. There was no problem about speeding up selection if this was necessary. It would not help to add to the selection teams extra regresentatives from the voluntary agencies since the final decision in each case had to be for the Home Office. The basic factor was whether accommodation and jobs were forthcoming since, and on this My Kenneth Lea agreed, it was Lesirable to try and avoid keeping refugees in resettlement units for so long that a camp mentality develo ed. Siter for funthen wonention centros could be found if the voluntam prencior hal the capacity to manore them. Whatever view the Government formed on the desirability of creating some further co-ordinating machinery, much depended on the goodwill of local authorities, the voluntary agencies and the public in general.

Sere

4. In answer to specific questions Mr Raison said that the selection team would not exclude elderly, bendiconmed or illiterate seprio from con.ideration. already been received, though it had to be recognised that the actual number of