TNAG-1533-FCO40-2097-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-closed-camp-policy-1986 — Page 47

DSR 11C

Turning to the proposal in your letter that Vietnamese

refugees currently in camps should be offered

resettlement in Indonesia and the Philippines, I was

interested to see how your thinking has evolved since

your exchange of letters with Richard Luce during the

summer before last. As our informal contacts at that

time indicated, there are problems with the ideas you put

forward. In addition to the points made by Richard Luce,

you might welcome a few further observations.

The opposition of the ASEAN states on economic and

security grounds to the idea of local integration for

Indochinese is clearly stated and of long standing.

would be the legal status of the refugees in the two

countries?

What

If they were to be granted citizenship, there

must be a danger that they would use their new passports

to travel to join their relatives in the traditional

resettlement countries. If not, I doubt that the

Philippines and Indonesia would be receptive to the

creation of a kind of isolation centre for stateless

persons.

The only real solution to the problem of Vietnamese

refugees will, of course, come when the Vietnamese

Government begins to fulfill its vital responsibility to

its citizens, creating conditions of safety, justice and

prosperity as the incentive for its people to remain in

and for those who have fled to choose to

their country

return. We shall continue to work to this end.