TNAG-0971-FCO40-1190-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1980 — Page 91

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lich Heng Kong is handling this but on the other han? thes it lo a very serious problem for Hong Kong and that I would cert

mut undar relo either the effort that has to go into it or l the difficultion which the Hong Kong Government and the voluntary organisatious have been coping with. So I mean I do see that it is a big problem and

I'm fully are that there is still something like, I think, 35 000

refugnen in the camps here at the present time.

i

Reporter:

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Raison: Well, it's not really for me to make statements about the next step in

Reporter:

British policy but what it is for me I believe when I return to the United Kingdom is to make clear to my colleagues and the Government

exactly what the position and the needs are.

*

Raison: Well obviously this is something which is best tackled as an international effort as of course and that was really the basis of the Geneva Conference

which Mrs Thatcher instigated last July.Obviously one would accept that

an international effort is a very strong requirement.

Reporter:

Raison: Our people? Well firstly of course they are interested in whether they

have got the capacity to make a go at life in the United Kingdom. Initially, I think it is true that the refugees over here didn't by an large think the United Kingdom being a country to which they would go

because frankly they haven't family connections, they didn't know very

much about the United Kingdom. I think California was often held out

as the ultimate heaven on earth as well as a place where they retrive many of their families and so on. So one of the things that we have had to do is to explain to people about the United Kingdom. One of the

things that has happened is that the distinguished Vietnamese who was

/in fact