TNAG-2401-FCO40-3488-Vietnamese-migrants-Orderly-Repatriation-Programme-(ORP)-1992 — Page 117

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BACKGROUND BRIEF

VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS IN HONG KONG

Since 29 October 1991, 123 Vietnamese illegal immigrants have been repatriated from Hong Kong to Vietnam. This was the first stage towards the implementation of the Orderly

Repatriation Programme, which was agreed by the Vietnamese, British and Hong Kong Governments in October 1991. The programme offers a way towards a humane and durable solution

to the Vietnamese migrant problem. It is also in accordance with the provisions of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), which was agreed and came into effect in June 1989 at

the second International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees

(ICIR), and normal international practices. The CPA states that only refugees should be resettled in third countries. and that those persons found not to be refugees should

return to their country of origin. After 29 October there was a dramatic surge in the number of people volunteering to

return to Vietnam. We hope that most non-refugees will volunteer, but clearly there will be some who will not. For

these pople there will need to be further repatriation flights from time to time.

Background to the problem

Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, large numbers of people

have left Vietnam. In all, over 185,000 have been granted temporary refuge in Hong Kong (the total population now stands at 57,000). Under the agreement reached at the first ICIR in 1979, all Vietnamese arriving in countries in the region were accorded refugee status and offered resettlement in the West. In the early to mid-1980s, the Vietnamese refugee population in Hong Kong steadily diminished as the programme of resettlement took effect, with some 13,000 coming to Britain. But from 1986 the situation

deteriorated, as arrivals began to exceed the willingness of

countries in the West to take people in.

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