TNAG-0971-FCO40-1190-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1980 — Page 176

E.R.

The present crisis is such that the world's response cannot be

confined to one country or continent and this country has seen it as its duty to respond to the new situation as it has in the past to other refugee crises. What I want to do today is

to talk principally about the way we are handling our own

distinctive contribution that is the programme for receiving

into this country some of the refugees who have fled, often in conditions of appalling danger and hardship, from what they see as the even worse dangers facing them if they had remained in Vietnam. In the process I should like to reflect also on the progress we have made in receiving and resettling these

refugees and on the lessons we can draw from our experience

so far.

The United Kingdom's response to the Vietnamese situation

You will not need much reminding of how the situation developed. The

exodus from Vietnam grew during the latter half of 1970 and

increased most drastically during 1973. The first large group of refugees accepted into this country were those rescued by the British ship Wellpark in the autumn of 1973. As the flow

of refugees continued, the last Government agreed to accept a quota of 1,500 refugees from Indo-China, some from Malaysia and

/Thailand but