TNAG-1796-FCO40-2556-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation--including-Opera-1988 — Page 71

CONFIDENTIAL

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There are now in Hong Kong almost 16,000 boat people who arrived before the new policy came into effect, and 'a further 9,000 who have arrived since. Housing and feeding such numbers is putting a considerable strain on the Hong Kong Government's resources.

4. The change in policy has however secured an important advance on another front. In July the Vietnamese Government told us that they wanted to hold talks on the return of boat people from Hong Kong. A first round took place in Hanoi in early August. This produced agreement that the Vietnamese would take effective measures to limit the outflow of boat people; and also agreement in principle that some boat people in Hong Kong should be returned to Vietnam. But the Vietnamese are saying at present that they will take only those who volunteer to go back.

And they have made it clear that they are looking for some form of limited financial assistance to reintegrate returnees into their communities.

5.

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We judge that the present Vietnamese focus on voluntary returnees is essentially tactical.

Vietnamese must privately recognise that a repatriation programme will have to go far wider. We shall press them hard to act quickly on the hundred or so who have asked to go back, since this would be a powerful deterrent to other would-be emigrants. But sooner or later the question of reintegration assistance is likely to be a sticking point.

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CONFIDENTIAL