FEARFUL of a public backlash against Vietnamese refugees, Margaret
Thatcher asked Australia to help buy an island to resettle them,
British cabinet documents from 1979 reveal.
Released after 30 years of mandatory suppression, the Downing
Street papers reveal the extent of the then British prime
minister's aversion to granting asylum to 10,000 boat people at the
United Nations' request.
The Iron Lady warned her ministers of ''riots in the streets''
and hatched a plan to have then Australian prime minister Malcolm
Fraser jointly purchase an island in Indonesia or the Philippines -
''not only as a staging post but as a place of settlement'' for
them all, the papers said.
The plan for a refugee
colony was blocked by Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who was concerned
it could become a ''rival entrepreneurial
city''.
The former Liberal prime minister was unable to recall the
proposal yesterday but he noted Britain's reluctance to assist the
resettlement effort. ''I've got absolutely no recollection of it.
I've got a fairly good memory for what happened at the time,'' Mr
Fraser said. ''The British were not involved in taking a large
number of Vietnamese refugees. We were, Canada was, America was and
France took a great many.''
Australia eventually became home to about 220,000 Vietnamese
refugees. Canada took a few more, the US more than a million, and
France about 90,000.
''One of the problems was a lot of the people fleeing Vietnam
were doing so in boats that … were totally unsuitable for survival
at sea,'' Mr Fraser said.
''Therefore, it was essential to try and establish centres they
could get to without making the journey longer than it had to
be.''
Malaysia had initially pushed boats back out to sea and many
refugees were believed to have drowned.
''As a result of diplomacy, they agreed to establish holding
centres. That was on the understanding that we, and other refugee
recipient countries, were going to take a very large number so they
weren't all going to be left as a problem for Malaysia,'' he
said.
A similar global effort was needed now, Mr Fraser said. Repeated
Opposition criticism of the Government's border protection policies
perpetuated a myth, he said.
''It's obviously nonsense. Politicians would be surprised how
much support a political party would get if it truly stated the
case for asylum seekers and refugees and explained the
circumstances from which they are fleeing.
''It shows a lot of courage to leave everything you know behind
to try to get a better future for your family.''
The Fraser government's liberal attitude to Vietnamese refugees
met no political opposition.
Footnote: The Vietnamese refugees were entrepreneurial Saigon's
ethnic Chinese who were escaping ethnic cleansing after the victorious,
ethnic-conscious, ethnic-sensitive northern communist
army of Hanoi moved south to unit the country.
