HUD 243/11
7983
STATEMENT BY SIR MURRAY MACLEHOSE (UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION) GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG
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Mr Secretary General [Mr Chairman]
I am most grateful to you [to the Secretary Generall for giving me this opportunity to speak to the conference.
As a member of the United Kingdom delegation who is Governor of Hong Kong, I am personally and intimately concerned with the human, political and social implications of the refugee problem this meeting has been discussing.
Hong Kong is now providing first asylum for 66,000 boat refugees from Vietnam and perhaps for the record I should make it clear that the only refugees in Hong Kong are from Vietnam. During the first six months of the year the rate of arrival has been higher than for anywhere else in the region. After peaking in June, this month boat refugees continued to come in at a rather lower rate of some 500 a day. But a few days before this conference the number dropped dramatically for instance yesterday the number was only 18 and the day
before nil. If this reduction is an indication of the concern
expressed by the delegate from Vietnam for the effect the large numbers of refugees are having in the region, and results from humane measures, I welcome it wholeheartedly; particularly if it reflects a permanent policy, as I hope it does, and not a negotiating tactic which, in everyone's interest, I hope it does not. We in Hong Kong will wait and see and hope.
FA 243/2
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/Hong Kong
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