i
and the invaluable help of a man in whose house they are currently living in Haiphong. In all, we obtained information covering 37 of the 51 returnees. Apart from the five in remote areas, one family of seven was unavailable because they were living on a relative's boat and had left for several days fishing before our arrival in Haiphong. We checked with the neighbouring boat that this was so. Although we are sorry we did not see them, we were pleased that they were out working. We were unable to locate the remaining two of those who returned on 12 December. However, we have asked the British Ambassador in Hanoi to give priority to visiting as possible all those whom we were unable to see.
4.
soon as
Before we began interviewing the returnees, we believed we had agreed with the authorities in Hanoi and Haiphong that we would be allowed to carry out the interviews without the presence of British or Vietnamese officials. Nonetheless, three local officials were present during the first interview, although they made no attempt to interfere and appeared to have limited interest in the proceedings. We did not make an issue of their presence during the interview itself in case it caused unnecessary distraction and disruption. But immediately afterwards, we made it clear that the presence of any officials was unacceptable to us. Following this we had no further problems, although a community policeman briefly called at the house during the first of our interviews with voluntary
We do not believe that either of refugees, but left immediately. these irregularities affected the course of the interviews. experienced the same frankness and apparent absence of intimidation during them and all our other meetings with returnees; and were reassured by the completeness and consistency of the picture we This picture was 'built up during the course of the interviews.
reinforced by independent sources working in Vietnam.
5. Our mission would not have been possible without the help of the authorities in Vietnam. We are grateful to HE Mr Nguyen Co Thach, the Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Vice Minister Mr Vu Khoan and their staff in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the cooperation and
We also courtesy we received before and during our visit. appreciate the assistance of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, who were responsible for arranging for us to interview
We are indebted to returnees in Haiphong and Hanoi.
Mr Hoang Ngoc Tri, Vice Chairman of Haiphong's People's Committee and Chairman of the Committee for the Reception of Returnees in Haiphong, and other members of his Reception Committee, for their willingness to cooperate with our requests and the arrangements they made for us in Haiphong. We would also like to express our particular thanks to Mr Dinh Quang Trung, who led us to the family
And, of course, we are who were the subject of our third interview. grateful to all those returnees we met for the time they devoted to being interviewed and the frankness and fullness with which they answered our questions.
6.
We are also particularly grateful to Mr Emrys Davies, the British Ambassador in Hanoi, for the very great effort he put into
our mission, for his the arrangements for and the execution of,
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