TNAG-1903-FCO40-2705-Hong-Kong-cabinet-meetings-on-Vietnamese-refugees-1990 — Page 47

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about 200 per week. Once all those at present in Hong Kong have been screened, the total screened out (and therefore awaiting repatriation) should be about 37,000.

3. The camps are now severely overcrowded.

Tension is high.

There

has been rioting, and two deaths in violent incidents. Cholera was confirmed on the outlying island of Tai A Chau, which has no proper sanitation or other facilities but where up to 5,000 boat people had to be temporarily accommodated in the summer months in the absence

of suitable accommodation. Tai A Chau has now been completely evacuated but the conditions in the camps remain the subject of much concern both internationally and in this country.

4.

There is a growing sense of anger and frustration among Hong Kong people at the inability of the British and Hong Kong

governments to contain, let alone resolve, the problem. There have been public protests. There is widespread resentment over the financial burden Hong Kong has to bear (now some £60 million in 1989/90). The Hong Kong Government are finding it increasingly difficult to get local agreement to sites for new accommodation for

boat people, let alone authority to pay for it. The Governor of

Hong Kong has warned that he will have to ask HMG for further

substantial financial assistance.

5. 264 boat people have now returned to Vietnam under the voluntary

repatriation programme agreed between UNHCR and the Vietnamese

Government. A further 700 volunteers are in the pipeline, and

arrangements are in hand for two further flights covering about 240 :

people. More volunteers are coming forward and we and the US.

Government have pressed UNHCR to step up counselling of those who have been definitively screened out, to persuade them to volunteer.. A major difficulty, however, is the extreme slowness of the Vietnamese bureaucratic process.

6. No repatriation programme is possible without the cooperation of

Vietnam. A separate agreement between HMG and the Vietnamese Government (reached at the end of June) provides for the

non-voluntary repatriation from Hong Kong to Vietnam of non-refugees

who have no prospect of resettlement. There are provisions for the

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