TNAG-1533-FCO40-2097-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-closed-camp-policy-1986 — Page 49

From The Minister of State

Richard Luce MP

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

29 May 1985

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13, FA 243/39311

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36/5

In your letter of 24 April addressed to David Waddington, you raised the matter of moving some of the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong to the Philippines. As Minister responsible for South East Asia, I am replying.

As you know, we are keen to pursue any possible ways of reducing Hong Kong's burden of Vietnamese refugees. However, this suggestion is not one that we have heard before. Before we take it up with the Japanese, I should be grateful if you would let me know whose was the initial suggestion that the Japanese might be prepared to pay for moving some of the refugees from Hong Kong to the Philippines. It is not clear to us why they would make such an offer.

We would also need to consider whether the Philippines would allow the refugees to enter. Our understanding has been that the Philippines would only be prepared to take Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong if they had already been accepted for resettlement elsewhere. Some already pass through the Philippines on their way to resettlement in the United States and Norway. They spend some time in the processing camp at Bataan, run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We are investigating the possibility of using this facility for Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong who are bound for Britain as the recent report of the Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration has suggested.

Sir Philip Goodhart MP House of Commons London SW1A OAA

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