70,000 to go
NZPA Kuala Lumpur Malaysia announced yesterday that it would ship more than 70,000 Vietnamese refugees in camps there back into international waters and shoot on sight any “boat people” entering Malaysian waters. “If they try sinking their boats, they will not be rescued, they will drown,” said the Deputy Prime Minister (Datuk Mahathir Mohammad). “Their drowning will be because they sank their own boats, not anything else.”
He said that the deportation of refugees would begin immediately, and would continue as fast as boats could be built to carry them. Datuk Mahathir announced last week that “harsh measures” would be taken against the refugees, 17,000 of whom arrived in Malaysia last month, according to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. “Being humane has not paid off to us at all,” he said.
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Bibliographic details
Press, 16 June 1979, Page 1
Word Count
13670,000 to go Press, 16 June 1979, Page 1
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