CONFIDENTIAL
MKKC 243/2
香港布政司署
14 DE
INOXX
CR 2/4821/75 XIII
Лет Nene Man
NO
CSE
23/12
CHIEF SECRETARY'S OFFICE
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
HONG KONG
as Copied to Mr. Witten; aND
2nd December 1981
Copied pas 14/12
Copy please to Mr. Buy's SCAD 2) Enter with HKGD. Mr. Cleft to
concert a draft reply soon. A
holding me would do but there is menit in shany That we In the light of a number of disturbing developments in the Vietnamese refugee scene which is distorting the main recoge
The Outflow from Vietnam
elements of the agreement reached at the Geneva Conference in July 1979 to Hong Kong's disadvantage and with the forthcoming he visit of the Lord Privy Seal, I write to alert you to our growing concern.
2.
witair
Em
Voo nuch
provien
diby
As you know, the Geneva Conference required countries in the region to provide temporary asylum, pending resettlement overseas, and in Hong Kong UNHCR undertakes to use its best endeavours to secure resettlement. This position has not changed.
However, Vietnam's undertaking at the Conference to impose a moratorium on the expulsion of people from Vietnam measured in terms of refugees reaching first asylum countries in the region is not encouraging. In 1980, 68,000 refugees arrived in various countries of the region and so far, in 1981, the figure is 66,300. For Hong Kong the respective figures are 6,788 and 8,072. Another element in the Geneva Agreement was that the international community should offer finance and resettlement places.
So far as the latter is concerned there is now quite clear evidence
3.
(a) that fewer places are being offered to Hong
Kong than is needed to shift the backlog of cases (and 6,000 or 45% of our cases have been here more than two years), and
(b) that the changes in the criteria being applied
by resettlement countries is increasingly ruling out from resettlement categories of refugees already here as well as those most likely to come in future.
Astmall 1/2
See (119)
個
126
131
See
HIKE:243/
+1912 +18
+
Attached
The background to all this is referred to in correspondence in the region including letters such as Donnelly's of 11th September and White's of 6th November
to Burns. We agree with many of the points made, but from + Attached Hong Kong's point of view a philosophical examination of
"push" versus "pull" factors and "economic" versus "refugee" +13
motives is irrelevant.
Our problem is what to do with
8,000 or so refugees who are now in Hong Kong and are not yet accepted for resettlement and what to do with the further,
A.E. Donald, Esq., CMG,
AUSS,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
London,
England.
BY BAG
/say
·
•
See NKK 243/1
5+
38
42
CONFIDENTIAL
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