Aust., Canada, Britain to take more refugees

Press, 20 July 1979, Page 5

Aust., Canada, Britain to take more refugees

NZPA-Reuter Geneva Britain, Canada and Australia said they would increase their intakes of refugees yesterday, on the eve of a conference in Geneva aimed at seeking a solution to the problem of Vietnamese boat people.

Britain said it would accept 10,000 more Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong, and it launched another strong attack on the Hanoi Government. The new Conservative Government, which has played a key role in initiating the Geneva conference, also announced it would give a further SIOM to help Vietnamese refugees this financial year. The British Foreign Secretary (Lord Carrington) accused Hanoi of callous and inhuman behaviour and told the House of Lords that Vietnam must change its policy of expelling ethnic Chinese. In the House of Commons there was uproar when the Government’s action was opposed by Mr Enoch Powell, a former Conservative Party member and now a Northern Ireland representative. Mr Powell, a fiery oppon-

ent of non-white immigration to Britain, was shouted down as he declared: “What possible grounds can there be, moral, political, historical, or ethnic, for the admission to this country of large numbers of persons from Indo-China . . . with which we have no connections and towards which we have no obligations?” Britain has already accepted 5000 Indo-Chinese refugees, and yesterday’s announcement was welcomed by all the main political parties. Canada said it would treble its intake of IndoChina refugees, and try to increase world pressure on Vietnam, possibly through aid cuts, to halt the exodus of its people. Canada would increase its monthly quota of Indo-China refugees to 3000 from 1000 until the end of next year, the External Affairs Minister (Mrs Flora MacDonald) and the Immigration Minister (Mr Ron Atkey) said. This meant that up to 55,000 refugees from Vietnam. Kampuchea, and Laos would come to Canada during this period under Government or private sponsorship. The Australian Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr Michael Mackellar) would announce details at the United Nations conference of a plan to in-

| crease Australia’s intake by 4000, Immigration Department sources said in Canberra yesterday. Some 10,500 refugees are already scheduled for resettlement this year under the Government’s official policy. The sources said voluntary organisations would play a prominent role in resettling the additional refugees. The list of prospective participants in the Geneva conference on refugees grew to 40 yesterday, including bitter political enemies who may complicate its humanitarian task with mutual abuse.

Mr Francois Giuliani, a spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim) announced that Portugal had become the fortieth nation to accept an invitation to the two-day meeting. Among those that had made known earlier that they would attend were Vietnam, its ally, the Soviet Union, and its severest critic, China.

Neither Laos nor Kampuchea, both under strong Vietnamese influence, was invited to the conference. But Mr Thiounn Prasith. United Nations Ambassador of the previous anti-Vietnam-ese Kampuchean Government, told a correspondent he was going to Geneva to follow it from the sidelines.