TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 247

CONFIDENTIAL

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RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

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DESK OFFICER

INDEX

REGISTRY

Action Taken

FROM: R D CLIFT

.30 DATE: 27 JUNE 1983

273895

cc: Mr Williams, UND

Mr Burges-Watson,

SEAD

Mr Burrows, Legal

Advisers

Mr Donald

Mr Donald-

PS/Mr Lace Minister

на сан

нко

HONG KONG : VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

PROBLEM

Agrew

1.

To help to ease the pressure of refugees in Hong Kong.

RECOMMENDATION

2.

I recommend that we instruct UKMis Geneva to ask the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) if there is any

likelihood of obtaining watertight assurances from the

Vietnamese authorities that returning boat people would not be vichmised

punished. If not we could ask UNHCR to state that they consider

all those leaving Vietnam as refugees, not as so-called economic

migrants. I submit a draft telegram.

BACKGROUND

3.

Since 1975, refugees from Vietnam have been arriving by boat

in Hong Kong. Between 1975 and December 1982 over 110,000

refugees arrived in Hong Kong, and some 100,000 have so far been

resettled, 14,000 in Hong Kong itself.

jin

4. Recently, the rate of resettlement has been slowing down.

Most resettlement countries, particularly the US, now reject many of the boat people on the grounds that they are economic migrants who leave Vietnam in order to seek a better life.

CONFIDENTIAL