366
14 June 1989]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE RT HON SIR GEOFFREY Howe, QC, MP, MR R MCLAREN and MR A PAUL
[Mr. Lester Contd
further discussions to take place with a view to trying to secure arrangements for the resettlement of such people back in their home country, Vietnam, because it is absolutely plain that Hong Kong cannot go on providing a home or refuge for them.
1004. Is it not true that this would not be volun- tary repatriation but compulsory repatriation, and the American Government do not support that particular view?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) The American Govern- ment, as I said in answer to a question yesterday, support the view they cannot go anywhere else, and stopped at a rather illogical point in their analysis. They seem to support the prospect of indefinite accumulation of people in places like Hong Kong, and that is clearly not a tenable position. What we need at do is to secure a balance of arrangements which provide for their relocation back in their own country, and we need to go as far as we can in that direction-essentially to check the tide of feeling in the wrong way. We tried ourselves to achieve that last June when I made the announce- ment I did. We need to go further than that to secure a substantial and continuing relocation of them back in their own country. The Vietnamese Government understands the need for that, they understand that conditions need to be achieved to fulfil that. I think they understand the need to reverse the flow, and that is the crucial first step.
1005. Does that not imply a change of attitude from both the Western governments towards Vietnam in terms of its economic future, because if they are not genuine refugees and economic migrants, what they are coming away from is not abject poverty (which is partly the responsibility of the Vietnamese Government) but also the fact that they have been denied resources and inter- national aid because of events in Cambodia? Is
[Continued
it not part and parcel of the major repatriation operation that one has to do something to restore the Vietnam economy so that people do not migrate away from it?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) There is clearly a connection between the two topics. It is rather more complex than I can attempt to tackle today.
Chairman
1006. Foreign Secretary, you do not look at all exhausted, but I think possibly the Committee and certainly the Shorthand Writers are exhausted by the marathon session. I am sorry we have gone on longer than normal but these are issues of an interlocking crisis of momentás importance, as I think you appreciate. We are extremely grateful to you for sparing time to come here when you have been in Luxembourg on Monday, Geneva on Tuesday and heaven knows where on Thursday and Friday, and you are shortly going to Hong Kong. We are grateful for the fullness of your replies and we thank you for giving us so much time on this issue of such global and central important to us all.
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) Thank you very much, Chairman. If I may respond by saying I very much appreciated the seriousness and care with which the Committee is addressing itself to this group of topics, as indeed it has done through its existence. If one needs some encouragement of the exemplary rôle of Parliamentary Committees of this kind I think this kind of discussion offers such encourage- ment. We plainly have to tackle these matters from a difficult point of view and being able to have so much insight in this way is something which I personally find extremely valuable in addressing ourselves to such difficult questions. Thank you very much.
Chairman: Thank you very much for those words.
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