TNAG-0972-FCO40-1191-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 31

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CONFIDENTIAL

NOTE FOR THE RECORD

(72A)

Mr. Willing J18.

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Meeting with the Governor of Macau

5 July 1980 in Madhu K

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(also present, Portugese Consul-

- General and Dr. Marques Secretary : 1980

for Culture and Education

Vietnamese Refugees

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Having seen refugee camps the previous evening (4,700 in all with a further 600 in the dockyard), I started by telling the Governor that the camps and their organisation seemed to me greatly improved since I had seen them the previous year. Despite this, I could see that Macau had a severe problem of overcrowding. The trouble they, and Hong Kong, suffered from was not so much genuine refugees as false ones. Some 5,000 Vietnamese refugees had arrived in Hong Kong this year about 2,700 had in fact come from China, where they had settled. Most of these had come through, or touched on, Macau. It was essential that the movement of false refugees was stopped. We had spoken to the Chinese on several occasions (I gave details). They had agreed in principle

We now to accept back those who had been settled in China. ha d about 4,500 awaiting return. The Chinese had also confirmed that a key factor in the outflow was rumours that Macau and Hong Kong were accepting refugees without asking questions about their origins. I gave details of one refugee in Macau, Li Hua, who, according to our investigations, had written encouraging others to come from China because he himself had been landed without difficulty.

2.

The Governor agreed that the problem was false refugees. Earlier Macau had an agreement with UNHCR that all refugees would be accepted by the latter, regardless of where they came from. Now UNHCR wished to change this agree- ment to exclude the "false" refugees. Macau had agreed. They were going to tighten their screening procedures and would also talk to the Chinese diplomatically and locally as we had done. I told the Governor we now had considerable experience of distinguishing true from false refugees. we help by showing officials from Macau how we did it or by The Governor said he sending some of our people to Macau? would like to accept the offer, but preferably by sending some immigration and marine police to Hong Kong.

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CONFIDENTIAL