TNAG-0975-FCO40-1194-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-other--1980 — Page 73

BY BAG

CONFIDENTIAL

91

布政司署

香

下亞

畢道

OUR Ref.:

CR 12/4821/79

來函檔號 Your REF.:

HiCK 2431s

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

15 September 1980

Aukin Gerts my 23.9

P Morrice Esd RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51

HK&GD

FCO

2 3 SEP 1980

DESK OFFICER

REGISTRY

INDEX

PA

Action Taken

nus Jase

سام

Dear Phily

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES: BELIZE

M. Williamson

AW 231 Pl. inform SEAD✓ COMED

84

2219

We have

Thank you for your letter of 26 August. considerable doubts about this scheme anyway. Our recent experience of difficulty in finding 150 refugees willing to go to Greece as farm workers makes us believe it most unlikely that it would be possible to find 1,000 willing to go to Belize.

2.

Even if the scheme looked more promising that it does, we would not at this stage see any justification for changing our policy and meeting resettlement costs. This would have a very real danger of encouraging major resettlement countries such as the US to make their offer of places for refugees here conditional on financial support from the Hong Kong Government.

3.

We can see that a number of places like Belize may not have the financial resources to absorb refugees even if they see this as desirable and economically justifiable in the long term. However, in any case, we believe that financing should, if justified, come from the international community as a whole rather than from the place in which the refugees have been given temporary asylum.

Yourerer.

AW

23/

сс

منسي

(I C Orr)

Mr Kydd MCD

Mrs Anderson UND

Mr D Ford HK Government Office London

CONFIDENTIAL