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(Mr Maude) I think there are two things one can look for. One is the
absence of negative signs. The other is the existence of positive signs.
I certainly believe that in the last few months there has been a welcome
absence of negative signs from Peking.
Chairman: I think we would like to go now from these issues to
which we will return to the question of the Vietnamese boat people which
has been again in the news. Mr Lester.
12.
Mr Lester
First of all, it would be helpful if you could bring us up to
date on the latest figures of Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong and the
number of voluntary returns there have been over recent months to Vietnam.
(Mr Maude) I have had drawn up an up-to-date list of the statistics
which I can perhaps hand out to the Committee. (Document handed in) This
was finalised in the course of today and represents the statistics as at
6th July, that is, the end of last week. There has been a further flight
of voluntary repatriants back to Vietnam earlier today of, I think, 218, so
those should be added to the figures under paragraph 3 of this sheet of
paper. What it indicates is that since March of last year, when the
voluntary repatriation programme began, 3,169 volunteers have been returned
plus those 218 today, but there are still 1,471 in the camps who have
volunteered but there has not yet been the capacity to return them to
Vietnam. There is a continuing number of people volunteering to return.
The numbers who returned last month were very nearly 700. I hope that that
will increase this month. Certainly when I was in Hanoi in February I
negotiated an agreement with the Vietnamese which would allow around a
thousand a month to be returned and, indeed, we supplied some money to the
Vietnamese Government to pay for an enlarged transit camp so that it could
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