TNAG-0899-FCO40-1109-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 73

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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

1. I had an interesting talk at the monthly Information Officers' lunch with Wain Gibbons, Counsellor in the Australian High Commission, who is closely involved with the refugee problem. He has a roving brief for refugees in South East Asia.

2. In his view November will probably be the last month in which large numbers of refugees are transferred to third countries, from Malaysia. He believed the final residual figure for refugees here would be approximately 30,000.

3. Like us all, he had no evidence or ideas about Vietnamese future intentions on refugees. However he said that he thought they might use the ineffectiveness of the 7-point plan for orderly departures as an excuse to open the flood gates again.

4. Interest in refugees from Indonesia and the Philippines may well mean that the take off of Malaysian refugees will decrease. He was critical of the UNHCR operations both in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the latter country he said that the UNHCR office was manned with freshmen. He was equally critical of the UNHCR Malaysian operation. He said his office earlier this year had been in constant touch with their mission in Geneva urging UNHCR authorities to step up their activities here. They had taken months to react and only now was the operation running smoothly.

5. He estimated that Malaysia had spent $65 million on improving coastal surveillance and he thought the Malaysian Navy could now repel two-thirds of any new arrivals from Vietnam.

19 November 1979

S MSCADDAN