TNAG-1277-FCO40-1627-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 12

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Queen Ann's Guit

FA

24314

„VED A KEGISTRY MO. 14

8 NOV 183

Mr Nicholson VSU Home Offi

-Pelt. Home Office Lumakkie nawor

Mr. Montgomery Pitt. Rome The Radcliffe Res. D.

UND/ODA

C M J Segar Esq Mis Birch UND /ODA

SEAD FCO

Mr. Peate UND/FCO

BRITISH EMBASSY,

PA

26 October 1983.

i) Kutw

1) Mr. Nectar 8th Roa 2(6) in

is very

ODPO

iclie.

interesting. It

Dear Churragher, the Kallan heran thants speed up DDR depantion, and may

ORDERLY DEPARTURE PROGRAMME

encourage mon bout-people i the shat te

too.

1. At the end of a recent visit to Cambodian refugee camps in the South by Heads of Missions of the European Community here, the Office of Foreign Relations in Ho Chi Minh City organised a meeting to discuss the current working of the Vietnamese Orderly Departure Programme. This was chaired by Huynh Anh, Deputy Director of the Office. But most of the talking was done by Nguyen Phi Tuyen, Director of the Department of Consular Affairs, who supervises the day-to-day administration of the Programme on the Vietnamese side.

2.

I will not weary you with a full account. But Tuyen made four interesting general points:

a)

According to Vietnamese estimates, 50,000 people now possess permission to leave and are waiting to do so. Of these, 19,000 wish to go to the United States and 9,000 to France. 35,000 people possess entry visas and are awaiting the issue of exit visas. 20,600 of those with entry visas plan to go to the United States. A further 10,000 are Amerasians. The Vietnamese estimate that 70% to 80% of those with entry visas intend to join relatives in receiving countries who have left Vietnam illegally since April, 1975.

b) "In order not to encourage illegal departures",

the Vietnamese authorities have previously hesitated to issue exit visas to the relatives here of people in this category. But since the problem of family separation is now understood as a "reality which has to be resolved" and since good relations with the receiving countries are important to Vietnam, the policy now is that people whose sponsors abroad have left illegally will "in principle" be granted permission to leave.

c) The Vietnamese central authorities are now passing on more detailed information to provincial author- ities than in the past about precise criteria for inclusion in the Orderly Departure Programme and

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/have