TNAG-1850-FCO40-2625-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 121

TRANSCRIPT B SELECT COMMITTER OI HONG KOI

P

12 JUIH 1989

10

SIR DAVID WILSON (CONT) :

up.

So first we would like resettlement to be speeded

Second we would like better arrangemante for people

to leave Vietnam in a safe and a legal way if they have

got somewhere to go to. Thirdly we would like the

Vietnamese to do more in a humane way to deter people from

leaving in these small, unseaworthy boats which have been hopping along the coast of China. And lastly, and this is a very important point, something needs to be done about

the people who are not refugees. It is simply not humane

that they should be left in limbo, in detention centres,

without the world community facing the fact that like

illegal immigrante from anywhere else, they ought to go

back to where they came from, to Vietnam, with conditiona

which are humane conditions so they will not be

persecuted, but going back to Vietnam.

MR LESTER:

And yet they are fleeing from a communist regime and

700 percent inflation and all the sorts of horrors that

many others are conscious could occur across the border.

SIR DAVID VILSON:

Xr Lester, they are also not trying to go to Hong

Kong but to go to places of resettlement.