TNAG-1794-FCO40-2554-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation--including-Opera-1988 — Page 319

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DROIT

CC SEAD

Mr Franch (MKA)

Key

2 PA

10 DOWNING STREET

LONDON SW1A 2AA

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HKD 243

HKD

(68392)

€

Ps/Lad Glenashr

Mu gill Mone Mr Mcclaren

ex/24/6.

From the Private Secretary

23 June 1988

Mr Footma 2716 W27/6

The Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your telegram about Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has an honourable record as a place of first asylum. The territory has offered temporary refuge to over 123,000 Indo Chinese refugees in the past thirteen years; and it will continue to honour its responsibilities towards genuine refugees from Vietnam, who meet the UNHCR's criteria for refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

The purpose of the new screening procedures recently introduced by the Hong Kong Government is to distinguish genuine refugees from those arrivals whose motivation for leaving Vietnam is simply a desire for a better life; who cannot therefore be considered political refugees; and whose prospects of resettlement in the West are non-existent. The UNHCR are able to monitor the screening procedures to ensure that they are carried out fairly. They can also assist appelants who wish to appeal against screening decisions.

Those who are found not to be genuine refugees will be detained as illegal immigrants pending their eventual return to Vietnam. We hope that when individuals in this position recognise that they have no prospect of resettlement they will of their own accord elect to return to Vietnam. But in any case, in pressing the Vietnamese authorities to agree to the repatriation of non-refugees, we are insisting on satisfactory assurances that repatriated persons will be humanely treated on their return.

You suggest that the implementation of the new procedures should first have been discussed within the framework of a United Nations Conference. Given the pressure of large numbers of arrivals. in Hong Kong over the recent months (between 100 and 200 a day in May and early June) and the dwindling resettlement prospects for the very large majority of them, we believe that it was right to introduce the new measures with the minimum of delay.

Dr. Le Xuan Khoa

C. D. POWELL