TNAG-2032-FCO40-2895-Visit-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1990 — Page 71

PORKIGA SEC:

SPURCH

HONG KONG GUNERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE · 15 JANUARY 1990

FOREIGN SECRETARY (CONTD):

The second decision was to authorise the Government of long

Kong to proceed with the first mandatory repatriation of Vietnamese

boat people who have been screened out as people who are not

refugees. This was not a decision which I relished, it was not a

decision obviously in which those who had to carry it out took any

pleasure indeed, but it was right to proceed and we proceeded in the

face of the criticism which we knew was inevitable from people in

Britain, from people around the world who had not been here, who had

not lived here, who had not studied the problems, who had not

realised what was at stake and what the dangers were.

Hong Kong, as I have constantly repeated to other audiences,

cannot be expected to cope lodefinitely with an endless stream of

immigrants from Vietnam, most of whom have no prospect of ever

finding resettlement

new home

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in the West, so we must find

effective ways of deterring a futile exodus and we must do our best

This is a burde 1 which

to empty the camps as quickly as we can.

Hong Kong has shouldered and shouldered for too long and I look for

greater and more practical understanding of this truth from the

international community when we have the next international meeting

at Geneva of the Steering Committee later this month.

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