believe the Vietnamese propose to withdraw within the timescale they have indicated. Not only will this enable
them to concentrate resources on reconstruction back home,
but it will lift the block on International Aid. As for the boat people who are determined not to be refugees, there can be no long term future for them other than in Vietnam. Those who volunteer to go back will enjoy the protection of UNHCR and will receive a small degree of reintegration assistance.
4. Q.
5
A.
Q.
Those who have gone back went with cash and consumer goods. Won't this tempt more to leave for the bright lights of Hong Kong, and at worst a free flight home laden with benefits?
A.
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We are well aware tht those who have left should not appear to have benefited by doing so. There is a delicate balance to be achieved in providing incentives for people to return which will not create more departures. One method would be to make reintegration assistance available to the
communities of those who return rather than to individuals.
But we believe the only effective deterrent in the end will be a steady and sustained flow of people back into the areas from which they have been departing.
Hong Kong is desperate.
Why don't you just push boats off,
or tow them out of Hong Kong waters?
We would have to think very carefully of the consequences of abandoning the principle of first asylum. First of all, it would mean abandoning the process that has been working towards the Geneva conference, on which at the moment we are
concentrating our efforts towards finding a solution. Secondly, it would go against an obligation we accepted at
the 1979 Geneva Conference. Thirdly, we would have to look. carefully at our international obligations under various UN Conventions, in particular the Conventions on Civil and Political Rights, which has been extended to Hong Kong, and on Torture, which we will shortly be extending to Hong Kong. Beside these considerations, "pushing off" would not be
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