TNAG-1540-FCO40-2104-Further-resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-i-1986 — Page 122

CONFIDENTIAL

DSR 11C

understand that

as our offtake is likely to near

the 500

mark this month your officials have now notified the UK

voluntary agencies to cease putting Hong Kong cases

forward to them and to begin submitting cases from camps

elsewhere in South East Asia.

5. I I recognise of course that in our response to SCORRI

we undertook to accept cases from camps outside those in

Hong Kong. However in the light both of our special

responsibility for Hong Kong as a dependent territory and

of the refugee burden that Hong Kong continues to bear,

this is not an easy point to put across convincingly to

public opinion in the territory.

6.

A hiatus in our offtake for, Hong

for Hong Kong would

doubtless be manageable if we could assure Hong Kong that

our offtake from the Hong Kong camps would resume

immediately upon completion of our current South East

Asia exercise. If however our current Hong Kong offtake

is now ceasing without our being able to reassure Hong

Kong and resettlement countries that it will resume at an

identifiable point in the close future, this will present

us with severe difficulties in terms both of our

relations with Hong Kong and of our continuing efforts to

persuade other countries to do more in their turn.

7.

we

In this light I believe that we should be prepared

now to consider fulfilling the additional commitment

made to SCORRI to "consider accepting, in addition to the

CONFIDENTIAL