CAMBODIAN REFUGEES IN THAILAND

HL Deb 12 December 1977 vol 387 cc1924-65

6.20 p.m.

Lord ELTON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assist refugees from Cambodia Kampuchea now held in camps in Thailand; and what is their response to the pressures that have compelled over 142,000 refugees to flee to Thailand from adjacent Communist countries since the spring of 1975. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I returned last month from a journey in South-East Asia in which I visited Thailand and in particular the province of Prachin Buri and a refugee camp in Aranya Prathet. This camp is about 330 kilometres to the east of Bangkok and about four kilometres to the west of the Cambodian border. It is as a result of what I discovered in my travels that I put down the Unstarred Question which is now before the House.

I must confess to your Lordships that, although I have spent the last two days trying to reduce the length of what I have to say, I shall continue for a longer time than I should like at this time of night. Those of your Lordships who may prefer to read my words in Hansard are welcome to do so without giving offence. Much of what I have left out is available in the report that I have written on the journey and the rest I will try to abbreviate.

The camp contained a population of 7,000 refugees, although it had been built to house only 4,000. The numbers therefore had doubled since it was constructed, but the sanitary arrangements had not been extended. Moreover, the water supply, which was supposed to make them work, failed almost from the start. I will not describe to your Lordships the conditions that result in a wide area of the camp; I can only say that they are a considerable threat to the health of the camp population.

The failure of the water supply was not only in that district area but also for all purposes. The boreholes had been sunk to a depth which was well below that of the water table, but the table, none the less, was too low for the pumps to lift the water to the tanks. The only source of water therefore in the camp is from hand-dug wells made by the refugees themselves. They have now reached about the maximum depth at which it is safe to use such methods, and they are in any case approaching bedrock. The best informed opinion I could get on the spot was that the supply would last for a further five to five and a half weeks. That was on 15th November. It takes very little arithmetic to show that, unless things are changed, the supply of water will probably run out somewhere about Christmas Day. I inquired from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees whether the situation had changed. I received the reply from Bangkok this morning that it had not, in connection with either the water supply or the sanitation, though confidence was expressed by the Thai authorities that something would be done very soon.

What does this camp look like? Across the countryside, as you approach it, it looks extraordinarily like a concentration camp, but this is a misleading view because the water towers (which are sadly empty) look exactly like watch towers; but it is surrounded by a high ring-fence. The only exit from the ring-fence is through a tall wire gate and that is guarded by an armed militia man whose business it is to keep not only strangers out, but the refugees in. This is a new facet of the policy and I will return to it.

The voluntary organisations within the camp—for whom I have the highest regard and to whom I will refer again—had, with some difficulty, persuaded refugees to start growing vegetables in a largish area. Unfortunately, when the 3,000 extra refugees came in the only place in which they could build their houses from bamboo and straw was on the vegetable fields in which the crops had not yet been harvested. Employment in the camp otherwise for gain is virtually non-existent, though there are handicraft efforts going on which should be warmly encouraged.

The only object of existence in the camp is to survive until eventually—you hope—you are resettled, either in Thailand or in a third country. That hope has for so many been deferred for so long that they are now in danger of sinking into a fatalistic apathy. Thus it was that what I saw was a community deprived of both liberty and purpose, composed of people who had lost not only their homes and all their worldly possessions, but also many of their closest friends and relations, and quartered in conditions in which at any time disease may triumph over medicine. That so many of these unfortunate people have retained their dignity and a good morale speaks worlds of the work of the voluntary organisations and also of their own qualities of endurance. I must speak with great enthusiasm of the work of the voluntary agencies and also of the United Nations High Commission, whose field officer I met there and who pursued his duties, as did the others, with an efficiency, perception and compassion which were all that were required—and, indeed, since these people were all Britons, I think your Lordships have reason to be proud of your fellow countrymen.

Let me now turn to the conditions from which the Cambodian refugees have fled. In speaking on this, I rely not only on the information generally available to all of us, which I have been studying in detail both before and after my visit, but also on interviews I conducted with 25 of the refugees who were Khmer speakers. I spoke to them through an interpreter who was wearing a uniform of the Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for the camp; but I also spoke to two or three people in English and half a dozen in French, directly, without an interpreter. The latter had not been selected but came to me out of interest and of their own free will. What is more, they spoke to me not within earshot of any official or indeed, for the most part of, anybody else.

May I then give a brief account of the country that used to be called Cambodia. On 17th April 1975, after a bloody civil war, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. Their first action was to destroy the old name of the country and replace it with a new one, Kampuchea. This act of destruction and change was symptomatic or symbolic of the whole philosophy that was to guide the rest of their campaign and continues to do so. It had already been outlined by one of Kampuchea's three deputy Prime Ministers, Mr. Ieng Sary. Its aim was the total destruction of every link, whether human or institutional, with the capitalist past of Cambodia and with virtually the whole of the rest of the world. The next step was taken in the zone that had been controlled by the Lom Nol Government until the end of the war. It was to turn the entire urban population, and that of the larger villages, out of their homes and on to the street. Somewhere between 3 million or 4 million people appear to have been involved in mass migration and resettlement. They were formed into labour units and communes and worked in conditions of slavery. This is borne out by the carefully researched writings of Père Francois Ponchaud. He reports that some were harnessed in teams of six or eight to pull the plough like so many cattle. Some of the many refugees whom he interviewed still bore the marks of the yoke to bear out their testimony.

Control of these settlements was given for the most part to three representatives of the Khmer Rouge, and their power was absolute. They alone have the right to perform the marriage ceremony; they have a power of life and death over the hapless people in the settlement. They have the sole right of life and death over the population and, according to the testimony of very many people, execution is the penalty for disobedience. They have for this a chillingly Orwellian phrase. They call it: "Being sent to the Higher Organisation".

The next phase was the deliberate elimination of all who did not fit into the system or had any connection whatsoever with the old Administration, and of their families. The lowest estimate I have so far come across is from the same Francois Ponchaud. It is a cautious one. It has been carefully researched and was made right at the beginning of 1976, only 8½ months after the fall of Phnom Penh, since when many more lives have been lost. His estimate was 800,000 and it is very widely regarded as a gross underestimate. The lowest current estimate last month was just over 1 million, and the highest just over 2 million. My own view, for what it is worth, is that the truth lies within those last two figures.

Your Lordships may say—and I would understand it if you did so—that I am being unduly gullible and that my corroborating witnesses, having been rendered destitute, homeless and bereaved by the Khmer Rouge, are hopelessly partisan. So be it. We have another witness: he also is highly partisan, but both his interest and his complicity render his authority unimpeachable. His name is Kheu Samphan, and he is another of the three deputy Prime Ministers of Kampuchea. Some time after the fall of Phnom Penh he gave an interview to a reporter named Stephen Grouess working out of New York. That was subsequently picked up and quoted by William Buckley Junior in the International Herald Tribune on 14th September. In the course of that interview he said to the reporter: In five years of war more than a million Cambodians have died. The actual population of the country is five million; before the war it was seven million". The journalist asked: "What happened to the other million?" That question annoyed Samphan. He said: It is incredible, the way in which you Westerners preoccupy yourselves with war criminals".

I scarcely think it is necessary to say more.

That is the terror from which the refugees have fled and from which they continue to flee. It has a great similarity, I would say in passing, to the terror by which the Jacobin Party ruled France in 1792, right down to the concept that all virtue and all authority rest only within that part of the population which belongs to the party and is actively in revolution, and to the concentration of the power of that authority in the grasp of a handful of small groups of what they call répresentants en mission, with the power of life and death over the population.

Aranya Prathet, the district in Prachinburi which I visited, borders immediately on Cambodia. The border itself is disputed and skirmishes are frequent; but we are not only looking at skirmishes. On 28th January, an estimated force of 300 troops, armed with automatic weapons, grenades, mines and, some say, rocket launchers, seized and held three villages. When they left, they left 34 civilians dead behind them. I have seen the photographs. One of the victims was a pregnant woman and another was a child of three, who was in fact her child. There have been at least two more large-scale attacks since then. One took place the day before I arrived, and 50 villagers were taken from their fields and fishing nets and shot, according to the reports then current.

I think it is fair to mention, in this very delicate situation, that there does exist an elaborate series of publications undertaken by an organisation called The Committe of Patriotic Kampucheans, operating in Waverley, New South Wales, which has only recently come to my notice. They have applied what would appear to be a very sophisticated critique to discredit the evidence of Father Ponchaud. Also, they have written up an elaborate, lengthy and highly circumstantial account of the whole history of Thai-Cambodian relationships, including frontier disputes. It has all the marks of careful research and at first it commanded my respect; but then I came to the passage relating to the refugees and specifically to the district which I had visited. That was the only passage I could positively check, and I found that in each of three particulars on which I could have given corroboration, either from my own experience or from the figures published by the United Nations (which are not in dispute) it did not coincide with either. On balance, therefore, I am inclined to reject the evidence of these publications. Incidentally, it was because of the violence starting to escalate in January that the 3,000 refugees who are extra to the 4,000 originally in Aranya Prathet were moved into the camp from billets in the surrounding countryside which they had previously occupied. I think that that was a prudent move on the part of the Thai Government, which one may not complain about.

May I then look at the arrangements which the Thai Government have made for the refugees in the past and what has now replaced them? They have set up a series of camps for the different nationalities coming over their borders. The arrivals are screened by the military, and supposed trained subversionaries, of whom there have been a number, have been weeded out and are dealt with under arrangements I am not familiar with. The remainder—the vast majority—then go into these camps and the Government receive from the United Nations a subvention of 25 cents per day for each of them, in return for access to the camps and the refugees.

The camp gates were open; certainly, the one I went to had up to that day been open so that 250 children could go, at a nominal bus fare, into a local village to get free education every day. But that stopped on 15th November. From that date, new camps which have been built are designed to receive the majority of the refugees and they will not be open as of now, to the United Nations for inspection. That is still subject to negotiation, and I would ask your Lordships to bear in mind that the Thai Government is a new one, that the situation is a rapidly developing one which is difficult to cope with, that there is no tradition of security of tenure of civil servants in Thailand and that therefore the Civil Service will not act without instructions from the Government. In fact, the Government were being sworn in the day I was there. There may be reasons for this hiatus and I hope it will be overcome; but in the meantime the policy is for all arrivals to go into military camps for screening. The assumption is that they are not refugees but illegal immigrants following an improved economy rather than people fleeing from a vengeance behind them in their home country. Those camps are specifically for refugees, or "illegal immigrants" as they call them, who are to be repatriated as soon as guarantees of safety can be got from their parent Governments. I shall not pursue the likelihood of such a guarantee being honoured. I think some of your Lordships will be familiar with the alleged fate of 26 who were thus repatriated to Cambodia, which I believe to have been fatal. Moreover, in the shopping arcade next to my hotel, I happened, before I went to the camp, to pick up a little news sheet which set out in specific detail the regulations under the current immigration Act. These regulations imposed a fine of 10,000 baht, which is something over £2,000, or two years' imprisonment, or both, on anybody either assisting the refugees without informing the authorities or failing to turn them over to the authorities, or failing to inform on anybody else so doing. Therefore it seems that they mean business.

Before your Lordships condemn the Thai Government as inhumane, will you please allow me o put this matter into proper perspective? In our country, because of the media's instinct for a good story and their concentration on the particular, we are very apt to think that the principal refugee emergency in Indo-China is represented by the boat people from Vietnam. That is in fact not the case. I have the United Nations figures for the end of October: the total of the boat people in Thailand at that time was 2,311. The total from Cambodia was 15,106, but the figure which casts a gigantic shadow across the whole statistical table is the 75,633 from Laotia. At the time of my visit, they were still coming at the rate of 2,000 a month. If you add those figures together and put with them the figure of those refugees who have already been resettled in other countries by the United Nations—they amount to about 47,600—you get a total of 142,000 refugees or more. That is the figure which I quoted and that, may I remind your Lordships, does not include the very large number of people who came over immediately before the census started in December 1975. These were the people who fled before the fall of Phnom Penh and the people who got out shortly afterwards. Nor does it include those who came over the borders in a clandestine manner and melted into the countryside—there are, I know, a number of those—nor does it include the uncounted bodies of those boat people who set sail for freedom in frail cockle shells and never made it to the shore.

This is an enormous problem for the Thais to cope with, and they ask themselves whether it is altogether right that three years after the emergency officially ended they should still be faced with this problem. Moreover, they say that the Thai-Laotian border is the scene of a traditional tidal migration in pursuit, first, of good harvests and, secondly, of good economies. Thirdly, they say that therefore these people are not looking for safety but rather for some of the free tickets which 10,500 of their compatriots have already got to the United States, where they think that life will be better.

Moreover, the Thais are facing this problem at the end of a season when the rains have partially failed and the rice crop is reduced—and both food and exports depend on rice in Thailand. Moreover, they are in a delicate situation as a result of the change of régime, they are under frequent military assault on at least one of their borders, and, on top of that, a seemingly endless flood of migrants come into their country to depend upon their succour.

If some of your Lordships think that their policy is inhumane, I challenge you to say what our own policy would be, if we ourselves were faced with the same pressures on a proportionate scale. What, indeed, has it been, what is it now, towards those who wish to immigrate into our country for reasons which, if less pressing, are none the less real? Therefore, let us look at what is being done to help them. I have spoken already of the voluntary organisations. I shall select one—because I went to only one camp—the Project Vietnam Orphans. Living on an annual income that would not keep an English working man alive for a couple of months in this country, they have made a very real contribution to camp morale. They have built with local materials an education centre in which there is a classroom, a generator, welding equipment, a forge, a carpentry shop and facilities to paint in oils and watercolours.

This is immensely valuable to camp morale. It gives a sense of purpose and a means of qualifying oneself for resettlement. Every day, they distribute milk to all the 2,000 children under 12 years of age; and, incidentally, they use Common Market surplus dried milk for the process, which we ought to welcome. In the process, they visit every family once every four days and can identify cases of malnutrition and other diseases. They also teach two hours a day in foreign languages. Their work is beyond praise. There are other agencies there from other nations, but I must not weary your Lordships much longer.

What is the solution to the problem? At present, the Thais can see only resettlement in third countries as the only practicable alternative. A great deal has been done already and 47,500 have been accepted for resettlement. Incidentally, of those 22,000 or more went to France, 21,000 went to the United States, 1,400 went to Malaysia under an admirable scheme run by Perkim, under the presidency of Tunku Abdul Rahman, 1,300 to Australia, 400 to Germany and 180 to Norway. What the Thai Government will not at present contemplate is a resettlement on any significant scale within their own country, for a number of reasons.

The first is political difficulty locally. The second is a fear that any largely successful scheme will simply increase the flood coming over, and that they will be swamped by it. But I think that if that flood is ever stemmed, it would be reasonable to look at making an offer to them of a feasibility study to open up some of the interior of the country for cultivation, with a road funded through the United Nations. This should not be imposed, but it should be offered.

There are other initiatives which we can take. For a start, we must get the world by the ears and condemn to the international community the atrocities that are being committed in the name of Communism in Kampuchea. The United Nations Human Rights Commission is the proper forum for this and I should like to see our people ensuring that Kampuchea is on the agenda at the next meeting. If any countries try to block this, they will stand condemned before the world by their actions.

Secondly, the whole problem posed by the refugees may be so huge as to be insoluble, but let us proceed one step at a time. We can do something. Just now I read out a list of the number of refugees accepted by some third countries. Your Lordships will notice that Norway, with a population a fraction of our own, has taken 180. Our own score so far is 94. The total allocation agreed by Her Majesty's Government in a letter dated 22nd January is only 116. We should do no harm to ourselves, and an incalculable kindness to the individuals concerned, if we were to increase it. Could we not perhaps even double it? So small an extra number would not rock the boat. And speaking of boats, the boat people in Thailand number only about 2,500 and a modest contribution such as this would actually have a visible effect on that problem and might be imitated. We should be in a stronger position to suggest an expansion programme to others, if we were expanding our own.

Thirdly we should press the United Nations for an increased budget allocation to UNHCR. I am very glad to see that we have, in fact, increased our subvention by, I think, £55,000 this year which is to be welcomed. Fourthly, we should recognise the outstanding work done by the voluntary agencies and the fact that they, being non-bureaucratic and non-statutory, are not tied by bureaucratic procedures and can respond very swiftly, and in a flexible and imaginative manner, to emergencies which need to be quickly met. I think that we ought to capitalise on this characteristic, and I suggest that the Government might look into the possibility of giving grants in aid to specific approved schemes. Again, the approval would have to be given very quickly, and you would need a body comprising not only representatives from all the voluntary agencies concerned, but also from Government. As it happens, such a body already exists in the Standing Conference of British Voluntary agencies for aid to Refugees—now to be known as the Standing Conference on Refugees—and I think that it should be investigated as a means of injecting some specific Government help.

Before I mention the fifth initiative that I have in mind, may I ask your Lordships to consider for a moment the wider implications of all this? If you stand back from the map, you will see that what we are witnessing is a little fringe of human debris, being pushed forward by the endless advance of a Red revolutionary tide flowing westwards and southwards through Indo-China. The next country, the dam at which this tide is now lapping, is the border of Thailand. Thailand is a founder member, and a large one, of the ASEAN group of countries which include Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. That has a market of 230 million people and the estimated increase of GDP per head per annum is 4½ per cent. It is a challenging and a staggering opportunity for our own industry and exports. It is very much in our interests to increase the economic base of that community, as well as the justice with which the wealth within it is distributed.

This organisation, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, is set up as the mirror image—slower to develop and later established—of the European Economic Community. We joined the European Economic Community in order to be able to make a visible, a real and an effective impact on the politics and economics of the world. Is this not exactly what the EEC was built for? Is this not exactly why we joined it? Can we therefore not have a closer liaison between the two communities, an identification of interests, which will be enormously for the benefit of both?

We also have an overseas development Ministry. I think that we want to beware of trying to catapult a principally rural, mainly traditionalist community, such as exists in Thailand, into a modern industrial society. Neither their social organisation nor their philosophy are suited to this. But they live by producing rice. It is possible enormously to increase both their productivity and the numbers employed in the effort. They also have a thriving industry for handicrafts and for making small, light industrial products. I commend to your Lordships' notice the work of various organisations which are already facilitating the distribution of these products; in particular, Aid to the Artisans, incorporated in America, which acts in association with museums and Trade Crafts, a publication which tells one all about outlets in European countries.

I think that those five initiatives, in conjunction with the feasibility study of a road, are not a great breakthrough. They are not an enormous stride forward in charitable terms. I think that they are the least that we can, either out of naked self-interest or for mere shame, undertake ourselves. That is why I have asked this Question, and that is why I shall listen with the closest attention to the Minister's reply.

6.50 p.m.

Lord GLADWYN

My Lords, last Saturday was Human Rights Day and was duly celebrated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the General Assembly. Mr. Waldheim observed: The protection and promotion of human rights is now among our most urgent priorities. All Governments must rededicate themselves to this purpose". M. Lazar Mojsov, the President of the Assembly, echoing these admirable sentiments, went so far as to claim that there had been "significant progress" in the 29 years which had elapsed since the Universal Declaration was adopted, but he noted that unfortunately we were faced with what he said were "mass and flagrant violations" of human rights, notably in respect of apartheid and in certain strongholds of colonisation, oppression and foreign domination", all of which, in his view, should be eliminated. Nobody seems to have referred to the sad fact that in addition to South Africa, basic human rights are now, in varying degrees, repudiated by no fewer than three-quarters of the 150 members of the United Nations, or that the behaviour of some of them, notably Cambodia and Uganda, with Vietnam and Laos apparently not far behind, is barbarous beyond belief.

To say, in such circumstances, that progress is being made is really rather insufferable. Presumably M. Mojsov holds that the achievement since 1948 of independence by some 80 States validates his contention. But however desirable such independence may have been—and I certainly do not deny that it was—the undeniable fact is that, by and large, human rights were much better maintained by Colonial Governors than by present-day Presidents. As things are, indeed, professions of faith in human rights by many such rulers and their representatives in New York is nothing less than a rather grisly charade.

The question is, what, if anything, we can do about it? I am afraid that the answer is, not much. Reliance on any action by the United Nations is obviously hopeless. The majority there will continue to suppress any attempt to protest against the denial of human rights in those countries, other than some which have violently Right-Wing Governments, where they are being most flagrantly violated and will continue to make use of the crusade against South Africa as a means of diverting attention from even greater scandals. Nor is it much good our lecturing foreign Governments like a governess when we lack any ability to rap them over the knuckles if they misbehave. Only the Americans could do that if they wanted to, which is perhaps doubtful for reasons which are evident enough.

We can, indeed, try to set an example by our own behaviour. When and if we may have occasionally, and to a very limited extent, in the face of a state of rebellion, to suspend certain human rights, we can make some allowances for other otherwise well-meaning and democratic Governments which may be in a similar plight. If, for instance, the West German Government have to introduce, as they may, special measures to cope with the Baader-Meinhof murderers, we ought to recognise the necessity of such a step. It is, in any case, against this deplorable background that I approach the situation recently investigated by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to whom all our thanks are due for bringing it up for debate today and for his splendid efforts on behalf of the flood of wretched refugees.

It is clear that what is happening in Cambodia is not only a major outrage in itself but, if we may believe the noble Lord, Lord Elton, potentially a danger to the maintenance of international peace and security. How should we react, therefore, to this particular scandal? Well, despite what I have just said, I believe that the behaviour of the Red Khmers is so exceptionally frightful that we should not hesitate to condemn it publicly, whether in the United Nations or elsewhere. Here I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. Perhaps it will not do much good, but at least we can try to mobilise such international indignation as we can.

The practical steps that we can take were outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his admirable speech, and from my limited knowledge I agree with all of them. That is the only thing that we can do in a practical way. We must also recognise the very difficult situation in which the Government of Thailand find themselves. We may have to make some excuses for them if they do not act always in accordance with what we think is absolutely desirable.

Also I think that we must do our best to back up with money and by other means the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the various voluntary agencies operating in this field, some of which were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton.

We must also, somehow or another, try to encourage—back up, if you like—the Thai Government, perhaps from an economic point of view. It may do good. The more secure they feel they are, the less they will react in an unfortunate way and the better it will be for us all. I cannot imagine anything that might be more in the collective interest of the European Economic Community than some kind of support for Thailand and a common policy of aid to refugees, as recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I hope that the Government spokesman who is to wind up will accept that point and try to persuade the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to raise this matter without delay in the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community.

Surely the great political objective is, by one means or another, to see to it that the calamity which has overwhelmed Cambodia does not now overwhelm the neighbouring country of Siam, thus justifying those who, from John Foster Dulles onwards, favoured the so-called "domino" theory, whereby Communism had every prospect of engulfing the whole of South-East Asia if, for any reason, the Americans had to abandon the struggle in Vietnam.

In the few remaining minutes of my speech may I, in this general connection, subject your Lordships to just a few reflections on the apparently increasing tendency of the human race, in default of great wars, to tear itself to bits behind the scenes—homo homini lupus, man is the wolf of man. Why has this happened? Some people say it is the result of population pressure and of food supplies not keeping up with the surge of population. I do not believe that to be so. The effect of population pressure may result in an enormous number of people just dying in starvation areas. I do not believe, for instance, that there was any shortage of rice in Cambodia when the Red Khmer came into power. It was not therefore a question of food supplies.

No, my Lords, it is much more likely that the appalling massacres of recent years, such as Hitler's extermination of the Jews, Stalin's purge of the Kulaks and now the apparent liquidation of one-fifth of the entire population of Cambodia are, as often as not, the result of some obsessive and fallacious ideology. There was, after all, no objective need for any of these fearful happenings. The first was attributable to a mad philosophy of race, not dissimilar in essence from that which may ultimately result in some kind of disaster in South Africa. The last two were an effort, in effect, to apply to a local situation certain crude and undigested doctrines of Lenin; namely, to put it very briefly, that society can be reformed and progress made towards an ideal future only if, in response to a kind of historical necessity, a group of intellectuals, allegedly representing the proletariat, violently overthrows an existing régime and maintains itself in power by ruthlessly suppressing any section of the population which may stand in its way—the end, of course, invariably justifying the means.

I have heard it suggested, I believe in the Press, that the leaders of the Khmer Rouge—a few peasants who had managed to get some education in Paris where apparently they had absorbed some popular Leftish doctrines—were persuaded that only by totally eliminating what they conceived to be the "bourgeoisie" could any progress be made. So when the régime collapsed and the opportunity arose as a result of the civil war and the disappearance of American aid, they did just that. To have exhibited any humanity in the process would, to their closed and rather infantile minds, have been an unpardonable concession to the woolly liberal thinking. Therefore they had—as I believe one of them confessed to a foreign sympathiser—to "clean up the towns" in their phrase; in other words to murder up to about 1½ million of their own compatriots. It only shows what a little learning at the feet of some Left-Wing professor can in practice achieve.

The moral is that people should somehow be warned that extreme and violent philosophies, whether of the Left or of the Right, are equally poisonous and equally self-destructive. It is no good thinking that we ourselves are totally immune from the virus in this country. Violence is increasing here at much the same rate, I fear, as disillusionment with politics and contempt for politicians. It will need real leadership, and perhaps some new political and industrial philosophy, if we, too, are not to fall victims to a new nihilism, embodying a rejection of all the values enshrined in the great Declaration that we celebrated last Saturday. No man, my Lords, is an island. Unless we get closer to our democratic neighbours in order to forestall it, and unless we can induce our young people to see the real calamity inherent in certain philosophies, we may ourselves in the long run be in for grave trouble. In short, my Lords, the end can never justify the means.

7.2 p.m.

Baroness VICKERS

My Lords, I should like sincerely to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his interesting report and also his initiative in studying this tragic situation. I shall be interested to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, what action the Government have taken or are contemplating taking in regard to refugees in Thailand. I want particularly to discuss the latter part of the Question with a view to making some suggestions. As the noble Lord said, everyone will be grateful to Malaysia for the action they have taken, and also I think to Indonesia and to Thailand. In particular, the noble Lord mentioned Tunku Abdul Rahman, who is known for his compassion. He actually adopted two Malay leper boys some time ago in order to try to encourage others to do likewise. Perhaps we might ask whether some of the 4,247 refugees now awaiting resettlement could go either to Sabah or Sarawak, which are not Muslim dominated and are not very highly populated.

I am grateful also to the representative, Mr. Jean Heidler of the UNHCR in London, and in particular for the information he gave me regarding those trying to escape in small boats. I am also grateful for the action taken by Amnesty International and would like to congratulate them on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It was sad to read in The Times on Saturday that the information on political prisoners in Cambodia— perhaps the worst offender of human rights in the world"— is practically unobtainable. The noble Lord has certainly helped with that tonight.

In the information I have received there has so far been no mention of the International Red Cross, which has done spendid work in many countries; and I should like to relate my experience in Indonesia in 1945–46 when they were there for nine months or more and really helped the situation. When the Japanese conquered the Dutch East Indies, as Indonesia was then called, they interned thousands of people. For example, in Batavia, now called Djakarta, there were four camps, in one of which there were 10,000 women and children. All in the camps naturally wished to be returned either to their country or to the various islands where they lived. But Lord Louis Mountbatten (as he then was) asked them to remain where they were and said that we would arrange special ways of getting them out of the country or getting them resettled. The problem was that, as your Lordships know, the Indonesian revolution had started and they were being killed. Of course, a great many persons were scattered in Java and the other islands and it was difficult to get at them, so the process took a long time. When the Indonesians declared their independence, many Dutch were in camps and had to remain there; and others of mixed races were interned by the Indonesians because they were considered to be pro-Dutch.

With some Swiss representatives of the International Red Cross and the Indonesian Red Cross I went to Central Java to meet President Sukarno who was still resident there and he agreed that those in camps should be visited and asked to sign a paper saying that they would be faithful to the State. They would then be given protection and would later be freed. Those who wanted to leave the country would be taken out and would be rehabilitated in the country they wished to go to. I know from one visit alone that 75,000 came out and arrangements were made for the others. It was done by collecting these people in certain places; those in camps were easy, but with those who were still at large it was not so easy. However, information was given to them that if they went to a certain point and remained there they would be taken away to safety by—in this case—the RAF flying aircraft into the interior. They were then flown to the ports; some were flown straight to Singapore and some were taken by ship to Holland or Australia.

I must here pay a tribute to both the RAF and the Royal Navy for the work they did. I admit that there were delays in the action and it took about 14 months to finish the job, and for myself I had to try to persuade all those of mixed blood to stay as I felt they would be unhappy in non-tropical countries. One knows what has happened, for example, in regard to the Amboinesians in Holland and the trouble they have experienced there. The Indonesian Government kept their word and, so far as I know, the then internees who remained in Indonesia settled down well. I have been back several times, once at the kind invitation of the Government, and I have never received any complaints.

I should like to suggest that the International Red Cross or any other organisation which is acceptable should be allowed to interview those who feel they cannot remain and, instead of having to go off in small boats and in other undesirable ways, they should be taken by arrangement to an agreed staging place from whence they could be officially transported. I hope that suggestion will be considered.

It would be advantageous to the countries concerned to get rid of the dissidents: it would give those refugees concerned a chance to get settled officially in a country desirous of having them. I understand that 27 countries have been approached and I only hope that when people are moved out of their country the family unit is not too broken up. It is far better to keep them together, if possible.

I believe my suggestions are in line with the scheme proposed for consideration by Governments; today I wanted to show that, given goodwill by Cambodia and others concerned, and patience by those waiting to leave, especially if they are willing to go into a temporary camp until they can be transported (as was done in Indonesia) it would be advantageous to all concerned. Without meaning to criticise in any way the work of the 22 relief organisations, it seems to be rather a lot of organisations; I do not know what co-operation they have, but perhaps the noble Lord will be able to tell us. I think it is advantageous to have one direct plan. Perhaps Indonesia might be asked to have a temporary camp in Sumatra with food and services provided by the United Nations and the refugees should be confined to the camp, because they spread about if they are not looked after. They could wait there until a country willing to take them can be found. This has worked very well up to date in other refugee organisations.

The Thai embassy produced an excellent document called Turn Not Your Eyes Away and I should like to give all possible praise to the Thai Government for doing a first-class job particularly, as the noble Lord has said, in the field of rehabilitation. There is difficulty in regard to illegal entrants and those not loyal to Thailand. Therefore, it will be better, if they genuinely wish to leave their country of origin, that they should be resettled in countries where they can have no further contact with Thailand. I gather that the difficulty is that quite a number of them go back over the border and return to their country probably as spies. On 12th November 1977 the Economist said, The buck stops everywhere. We now have this excellent debate, in which we can see that the buck does not stop here. I think that the time has come for an effort to be made to help the Thai people, and to realise also that Laotian mountain tribesmen and others cannot be expected to settle down in alien West Sussex.

I understand that from 15th November onwards Thailand's attitude to the Indo-Chinese refugees, under a new agreement concluded with the United Nations Organisation, is to be that stricter measures will be taken against those who enter Thailand illegally. It is very difficult for the Thai Government to decide who has entered in this manner if they just slip over the border. These are the people who need special interrogation, to see whether they are truly illegal entrants or whether they have simply entered as so many do in Berlin over the Berlin Wall. Those who came into Thailand prior to 15th November 1977, will come under the financial support of the United Nations Organisation. The Minister in Thailand said that Thailand had done its best to get third countries to assist Thailand to repatriate some refugees to their country. He pointed out that Thailand had tried to get the displaced persons out of Thailand, and to discourage them from coming to Thailand either by land or sea. However, for humanitarian purposes, they had been provided with food and temporary shelter before being sent out of the country. What more can a country like Thailand do?

I gather there has been sufficient money for settlement. There is an amount of 14,350,000 dollars at the moment, which will include help for education, resettlement and self-reliance projects. I should like to suggest that some arrangement might be made on similar lines to what was done in Indonesia. I think this is fairly practical. It was not easy in Indonesia. When I was going in, the General in charge of British troops said to me. "If you disappear we are not going to send any troops to find you". The International Red Cross were far more practical. They made me sign a document saying that if I disappeared my family would not claim compensation. It was the first time I knew I was worth something.

I hope that we may be able to get something done on these lines. I am quite certain that, if the International Red Cross or other people were to approach them—after all, we have radio and so on to put it over to people in these countries, which was not possible in 1945 in Indonesia—they could get the refugees organised into groups and get them to come out, for the benefit of both the refugees and the country concerned.

7.14 p.m.

Lord TANLAW

My Lords, I think it is very fitting that so soon after Human Rights Day on Saturday we should be focusing our minds on a mammoth human rights situation such as described by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, this evening. Some noble Lords may have been aware that Amnesty International had a carol service in Trafalgar Square on Saturday. In that congregation there were many young people, there were churchmen, committed Christians, those, like myself, who have relatives detained trial-less in some far distant land. All of us listened and were comforted by some of the words the noble Lord, Lord Soper, spoke. He spoke with great simplicity and sincerity about the problems of human rights in countries far away from these shores.

Whereas it is possible to focus the mind or direct one's concern to one individual or even a few individuals about whom one has knowledge, it is virtually impossible to feel, understand or comprehend the situation of the numbers of human beings in the kind of distress which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has described to us today, and this is only in one part of the world. My noble friend Lord Gladwyn expressed some of the helplessness that I certainly feel, and I know it has been felt by other noble Lords who have spoken—What can we do?

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has set out in his report, and indeed in his speech this evening, possibly the most practical and sensible things that can be done at this time, and I wish to give him all our support from these Benches. He made mention of the voluntary agencies and one should underline the work which they are doing. We should give them more financial assistance where it is possible, and more recognition of the work done by this small and dedicated band of individuals in very difficult circumstances. The noble Baroness mentioned one agency which is operated by Tunku Abdul Rahman in Kelantan. The work he is doing deserves recognition. I think it is perhaps unfortunate that official circles in other parts of the peninsula cannot share with the Tunku his concern for human rights and the constitutional principles on which he founded the State of Malaysia.

On the wider issues which were touched on by my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, and which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, expressed with the general phrase "the domino theory", I only have two points to mention in the context of this debate. To follow on from what my noble friend Lord Gladwyn said, it has perhaps been overlooked that in Cambodia the revolution was an agrarian one, but there was a feature in it which I think I have never read or heard about before, which was the division between those Cambodians who lived in the country and those who lived in towns or in large villages. This revolution, in my view, could not have succeeded on ideological principles alone. I have a suspicion—I can only have that, as I am not familiar in depth with this part of the world—that if in areas with large rural populations the economy, that is, the village unit, breaks down to an extent which offers no future for the younger sons, these people look towards the larger villages or towards the towns; they see that some of the prosperity remains there and does not come out to the villages. This point has been mentioned time and again in the context of aid-giving agencies and support for South-East Asia or the developing countries.

I believe that this revolution, which was both mindless and bloody, could be repeated in Thailand, in Malaysia, or in Indonesia, or indeed in any country with a large agrarian population whose economy has gone wrong, or which has been repressed to the extent that they are desperate. It has already been mentioned this evening that Thailand may be an area that is vulnerable to this kind of revolution. Let us hope not.

There is another factor at work here, which is the hereditary system in which land is carried down from one generation to another. At each death of the landholder the land he possesses is distributed among his sons. After each generation the divisions get smaller and smaller. It is my feeling that in areas like Thailand, possibly in Indonesia, these parcels of land have been reduced to a very small acreage indeed. They are nearing, or have already passed, what is subsistence level. When this present generation dies and these lands are subdivided yet again, I have a suspicion, a suspicion only, that the seeds of another agrarian revolution may have already been sown.

As regards land tenure and the future of land tenure, the villages and rural areas of not only Cambodia—it is already too late there, as we have heard—but Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia will perhaps be the biggest centres of explosion in South-East Asia within a very short time. Again I have a sense of helplessness as regards what can be done. I know that there are problems of land tenure in certain parts of Sarawak, and, I think, Sabah. I do not know because I have no direct knowledge of Indonesia, but the pressures of population, plus the factors which I have already described, will again add to the possibility of eruption of people who do not see a future at all.

We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, what can happen and, indeed, has happened, to a country where the rural economy has broken down. It could happen again and again in South-East Asia unless the aid, the prosperity and, indeed, the bourgeois outlook to which reference has been made, manages to permeate and succeeds in permeating the rural areas which we have discussed.

7.22 p.m.

Lord GRIDLEY

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, I hope that he will forgive me if I do not make any specific comment on what he has just said. I found it extremely difficult to follow his arguments and, having been a civil servant in Malaya for 30 years, I cannot conceive that there can be any reason why there should be any trouble over land tenure or agrarian reform or how they have any bearing on the present situation in Cambodia.

I am sure that on whatever side of the House your Lordships may sit, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Elton for not only his speech but the information he has obtained first hand by his visit to a disturbed area in South-East Asia. First of all, I want to deal with what I consider to be the terrible situation arising in Cambodia. For, if that situation did not exist, quite obviously the grave difficulties which face Thailand in the settlement of its refugees would not then be the matter under consideration tonight. Basically, I want to get back to the origin of the trouble and comment on Cambodia.

When the noble Lord, Lord Elton, states, as he has done, that out of a population of 7 million inside Cambodia a conservative estimate gives the liquidation, under the present régime, of 1.5 million to two million inhabitants in a space of three years, I begin to wonder whether the world will ever come to understand the sanctity of human life, man's spirit and that conduct of affairs which should govern the attitude of men in their dealings with one another. So, in reading the noble Lord's report on his visit, my mind was cast back to a trial which opened in Singapore on Monday, 18th March 1946, which was to bring to justice certain individuals who had perpetrated crimes on all fours with those crimes which today have been, and are still being, perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. That trial in 1946 was, in essence, to establish a code of conduct to be followed in the future by which men would respect the sanctity of life after a war and even in peace. However, that seems to have been forgotten in the present instance of Cambodia.

That trial in 1946 was before a military court. The object was to bring to justice certain individuals who had no respect for civilised law, life or a compassion for mercy. It was a trial to establish the guilt or innocence of men charged with causing the death, by torture, of 15 of my compatriots who were taken out of Changi Gaol into Singapore for interrogation, during which they were tortured. Who was the president of that court? The president of the court hearing that case was none other than Lieutenant Colonel S. C. Silkin, who today occupies the position in Her Majesty's Government of Attorney-General.

Mr. Silkin acquitted a number of the accused but some were sentenced to imprisonment. However, eight were sentenced to death. In passing the death sentence Mr. Silkin had various things to say to Colonel Sumida Haruzo at that time head of the Japanese Kempetai— Gestapo. This is relevant in considering the situation which now exists in Cambodia. I quote only a part of his speech. He said: If, as I believe, Colonel Sumida, some of your victims made their sacrifice in the hope and belief that what they stood for would not die, let this be their epitaph, that they died for an undying cause". He went on: To those of us who survive falls the supreme task of establishing and maintaining that higher morality between nations and of supplanting the rule of force and fear by the rule of law". My Lords, I repeat: supplanting the rule of force and fear by the rule of law". In view of the atrocities perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge within Cambodia at present the civilised world cannot remain silent. I support my noble friend and all other noble Lords who have spoken, in the hope that a statement of condemnation will be issued by Her Majesty's Government against the nefarious régime within Cambodia and the opinion of the civilised world will be mobilised against it. To remain silent would be a betrayal. It would be contrary to our principles to remain silent and, as has been suggested by other noble Lords, I think that some condemnation should emanate from the United Nations.

Before I leave this point the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his excellent report and in referring particularly to the situation on the Thai-Cambodian border, said: Escape routes from Cambodia when discovered are marked by the heads of those who have attempted to use them, set up on stakes such as used to adorn London Bridge in the Middle Ages". I can quote something earlier than the Middle Ages, and the barbarity that seems endemic among certain races, because I was taken out of gaol in 1942, which was not the Middle Ages, and shown heads stuck on poles in a similar manner to which the noble Lord has drawn attention. It was stated by the Japanese who spoke to me that they were the heads of those who had listened in to allied broadcasts and who, in consequence, had been executed. So customs which seem to be endemic in certain parts of the world die hard. I have made those comments to reinforce what I consider to be the accuracy of the noble Lord's report.

I notice that my noble friend Lord Elton appeared to be anxious that we should be sympathetic towards Thailand. For many years I served in the North of Malaya on the Thai-Malayan border. I would say that on the whole the Thais are a very lovable race and are a race who want to remain at peace. That is their problem. I can understand that they are deeply worried by what is going on in their country at present. For many years the peace which they enjoyed in Thailand was brought about by the strong metropolitan Powers of Great Britain administering Malaya, and France, which was then in what is commonly known as Cambodia, or French Indo-China. So the Thais were able to manage and govern their own affairs protected by two strong Powers, and I think that it was the only country in that part of the world at that time which for very many years—in fact all of the time—ran its own Government.

Suggestions have been made tonight about what we should do and how we should help the Thais in Thailand. Let us treat them with respect, sympathy and tact and do all we can to help them. In the last war I happen to know that their intelligence services were of great use to us in our war against the Japanese.

I am not surprised that the Thais are deeply worried by the refugees crossing their borders from Cambodia and even from Laos. There is always the danger of subversive infiltration in that part of the world, particularly because of the very thick jungle which exists, and it is comparatively easy to infiltrate. It must be worrying to the Thais when this emanates from people who might be acting on behalf of the Khmer Rouge. If I understood my noble friend Lord Elton correctly, he was unable to discover with any certainty whether all of those people had nefarious activities and emanated from the barbarious régime, although quite obviously some would be escaping from the tyranny to which they had been subjected.

As I think the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, pointed out, all this is dangerous to the existence of what has now become known as the "domino" theory. The existence of these problems in Thailand ought to be of great concern to the Governments of Malaysia, Singapore and even Australia, whose interests are paramount in the area and which dominate that particular part of the world. However, it does not mean that what is happening in that area of South-East Asia is not of tremendous consequence and fraught with dangers to all of us in the civilised world.

My noble friend Lord Elton made various suggestions for the resettlement of refugees in Thailand with assistance to the Thai Government, but he found that the official policy of the Thais was to repatriate all refugees who could not be settled in third countries to the homelands from which they came, albeit to exercise that decision humanely. I can understand that view and would merely observe on that point that in view of the Japanese attack in 1941—when Siam was invaded for the attack on Malaya and the Thais were forced to become an ally of Japan whether they liked it or not—in retrospect the Thais have every reason to be worried about any refugee who may settle in their area today. That probably explains their present lack of enthusiasm towards the suggestion of a resettlement of refugees in the area. I would think that in any discussions we have with them, or which other Governments may have with them, it would be very difficult to change their views on this. But certainly, as my noble friend has suggested, the position should be explored.

As regards resettlement in Malaysia of any large number of these refugees—and I do not understand some of the things I read in the Press about Malaya being rather touchy about certain things at present—a great deal of tact would be necessary in our approach to that Government. They still have Communist infiltration on their Northern borders which, although contained, is nevertheless a running sore, and I am doubtful whether the Malaysian Government would easily accede to any large-scale resettlement of refugees. Nevertheless, I feel that an approach in a friendly manner should be made to them.

Other noble Lords have spoken about the activities of Tunku Abdul Rahman and, therefore, I shall not repeat what has been said. However, there are most serious and dangerous problems in this area which cry out for a solution at this particular moment in time. The longer it is before we face them, the more dangerous they become and the longer they remain unsolved. For myself and from my experience in the areas in which these dangers exist, I have made my own comments in this debate on the problems as I see them, but I have not covered all the important issues, for time does not permit. Obviously, there is a need to improve the condition of the existing refugee camps in Thailand and to render assistance to the Thais in securing this. It is obviously desirable that the refugees should be allowed some gainful employment from these camps in husbandry or the planting of vegetables, because for a refugee to have time on his hands must be thoroughly demoralising. With respect to Her Majesty's Government, I would suggest that all these matters need their urgent consideration and the consideration also of the other Governments in South-East Asia who are affected.

Under the colonial system the peace that many enjoyed, the prosperity, the standard of living and the friendships that grew up between ourselves and the indigenous populations, not only in the countries in which we had a direct responsibility but in many of the other adjacent countries, received a blow in 1941 by the Japanese attack. But the principles for which we stood remain and we are remembered for them. Above all, the goodwill towards us is still there. Therefore, in any of our dealings in these great difficulties that goodwill remains and our influence is still very great.

In conclusion, I would merely remind the House once again of the words of Mr. Silkin, our present Attorney-General, to which I referred at the outset of my remarks when I spoke of that higher morality between nations in supplanting the rule of force and fear by the rule of law. I ask the Government to give an undertaking to consider carefully the points raised in this debate and those made by my noble friend Lord Elton, and then initiate action which cannot wait. Although war is not imminent in that part of the world, we have there all the ingredients which could lead to war. I hope that in these circumstances we do our very best to remove the dangers which exist. This has been a serious debate and we may have to have another debate on the issues which have been raised.

7.38 p.m.

Lord GORE-BOOTH

My Lords, I am sure that all Members of your Lordships' House who heard the noble Lord, Lord Elton, opening this debate must have been greatly moved—indeed, rather shattered—by his first-hand account of what he saw in Thailand. If one has had some experience of voluntary work in less developed parts of the world, one sees something of the symptoms which he so vividly described, but the particular case of these enormous numbers of people coming over the frontier and having somehow to be housed by a country which is not rich in resources, or in what I might call intense administration, must be somewhat overwhelming.

I had not intended to speak quite so politically as most of your Lordships, but none the less I feel that the debate gives the opportunity of saying one thing which I know the noble Lord, Lord Elton, feels, and has written elsewhere, about the views we hold on Cambodia. Most of your Lordships must get very tired of being told how iniquitous the Salvadorians, the Argentinians, and the Chileans are, and so are certain things which they do; but it is time that, even if they are not here to hear the debate, they should read what has been said about Cambodia. There you now have, at the end of the day, a highly repressive Government living with at least one million shadow graves and having adopted that odious system invented in East Germany by which, if you try to get out of the country and the Government do not want you, they shoot you. This is what it is like, and it is time the whole world appreciated the nature of that place.

In this I do not wholly differ from the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, because some of the developing countries have indeed retained what one might call provocative land ownership systems far too late in the day. On the other hand, this is not wholly true in South-East Asia where some countries, notably Burma, have, in a curious way, dealt with these matters peacefully over the years, and it may also be true that Indonesia's experience has made this question less actual than it would otherwise have been.

What I tried to do, and shall try to explain as shortly as I can, was a little thinking on what it was within our power to do about the present situation. I put what I have to say in two categories: practical compassion and money. On the matter of practical compassion, of course, the voluntary agencies can play a great part, and I am sure—if I may speak without authority on behalf of them—that there will be great pleasure among the agencies which are working in that part of the world at the appreciation which has been shown of their work on all sides of your Lordships' House. It is a very arduous task that they take on, and, from what one has seen of it, our young people particularly exercise a gallantry, endurance, and cheerfulness in this work which is difficult to believe until you see it. I know that your Lordships appreciate that, and they will be grateful.

Of course there exists here one of the paradoxes of the situation. As the Thais have said in their time, "Of course, we don't want to make our country too comfortable for these people because our object is not that we should retain them being looked after by your voluntary societies; it is that they should vacate our country and go elsewhere". There are reasons for the Thais doing this. The first is because they have an extensive rather than an intensive system of agriculture and cannot, without a revolutionary change, make more room in their own country.

Secondly, there is a real fear in Thailand of the powerful military neighbours to the East of them. After all, there is a tradition of hostility over frontiers between Cambodia and Thailand and this could always be translated into practice if the Thais do anything which they and their enemies feel is too provocative. So, again, the good work that is done in Thailand is, in some sense, an embarrassment unless it can be followed up by action on the part of the rest of the world.

The situation that we have, and as many of your Lordships have decribed it, is ominous. It is ominous because, unlike, for instance, the situation when Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, there is no way out. Hungarians who thought quickly enough could get across into Austria and be welcomed. There is nowhere to which fleeing Cambodians, Vietnamese and Laotians can go except Thailand. Therefore, their country is under very great pressure indeed, and it is extremely important for the rest of the world to discover, if it possibly can, some way of relieving the pressure. I do not feel totally pessimistic, although I am enormously anxious about it, if only for the reason that I should think that the flow will probably diminish if only as a result of measures taken by the Communist states of what was Indo-China.

Now, I come to the money aspect of this question, because unfortunately refugee and displaced person situations cannot be dealt with without money in a rather special sense. What I think those of us who come new to refugee situations do not always realise is that money is not just something which is needed to get people out of somewhere and settle them somewhere else. For instance, I have seen one statistic produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which puts the matter like this: over two years, a sum of £2 million was spent on various refugee and displaced person activities by the United Nations' High Commissioner. Of that almost exactly two-thirds was spent on refugees awaiting a definite asylum—a durable asylum is the technical phrase. Therefore, what we have to think of is not only the possibility of getting someone to accept refugees, it is the enormous expense of the maintenance of these refugees until such decisions are taken. One's conclusion from that—if I may reach a conclusion in advance of summarising any conclusions—is that anything that any of us and any of the countries who sympathise in this situation can do to reinforce the finances of the United Nations' High Commissioner is directly relevant to our success in getting refugees into new and permanent asylum.

We can be encouraged in our efforts to do this for one particular technical ground; that is, that we need not think of the United Nations' High Commissioner being subject to all the ebb and flow of opinion and doctrine in the United Nations Assembly. The High Commissioner has a great degree of autonomy in this matter, so, if we do help him in this situation he will not be hindered and obstructed by the kinds of resolution that come out of a highly charged Assembly, which was probably at the time it passed them thinking of something else. In that respect at least, there is an important agency at work—and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, paid tribute to its efficiency also—trying to persuade the Thais not to give in, not to start the ghastly process of repatriation, but to be patient while all of us, if we can, try to persuade ourselves that we can accommodate more people in the rest of the world.

In this respect, the noble Lord referred to some figures. It is enormously to the credit of the United States that they now accommodate over 160,000 Vietnamese in their country. One may say that they have a certain special responsibility, and this is true, but it is none the less an extremely generous gesture for a very large country. The French also have a good record based, of course, on the fact that the official language in Indo-China was French, so France has opened its doors to people from that part of the world.

We too have moved, shall we say, although 116 is not a very large score. We might manage to do a little better. But, really, I would put the case on the very much broader ground that, given the background to what has happened, the free nations of the world ought somehow or other to make a more conscious and a more co-operative effort to see if they cannot increase the numbers which, so far, if they have not been content to restrict themselves, they have felt themselves compelled to keep to. This is really the message which I feel comes from this rather shattering report.

Of course, if the rest of the world is more generous in future than it is at the moment then all our nations will become that much more multi-cultural. I am sorry about that word, but I think your Lordships will understand what it means. I cannot see the world enduring without that happening. After all, we have accepted it here, in spite of what the National Front may try to say; and the French accepted it long ago. It is not a purposeful policy; it is a thing which happens—and who can say with confidence that the world will ultimately be the worse for it?

So what I hope Her Majesty's Government will be able to tell us they are able to do is to think on these lines; and, in the meantime, perhaps we can do two things specially. The first is this. Can we perhaps do a little more to take advantage of the existence of multilateral organisations—starting, of course, with the EEC—to see whether a more corporate effort could not be exerted to help the Thais? Can we finance the United Nations High Commissioner's activities more richly and, in general, think out ways and means in which the Indo-Chinese (I hope your Lordships will forgive the obsolete expression, but it helps to describe those who come from the whole area) could be accepted in other countries, always bearing in mind that some of the mixtures of culture simply would not work but that others possibly would?

The second thing that I hope Her Majesty's Government will be able to do in any case is possibly to increase our subscription to the United Nations High Commissioner's Office. It is not fashionable to speak of increases in expenditure, and I am fully conscious that in this matter I am being a little paradoxical. None the less, with even £100,000 or £200,000 more, the High Commissioner could proceed more quickly and more widely, and then at least we should not have the feeling, which I felt your Lordships quite understandably had throughout this debate, that we are helpless. I think we are helpless to influence the major policies of the future in that area. That, I do not see that we can do. Certainly, we cannot reverse the political tide which has overwhelmed Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; but perhaps we can, in a limited way, at least afford comfort to and provide a home for rather more of these refugees than we have yet, as a world, been able to do and thereby also, as a secondary effect, assure a prosperous and peaceful future for Thailand.

7.54 p.m.

Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD

My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate, and I think that almost everything which can be said about this subject has been said. In that case, perhaps I ought not to speak at all, but I have been deeply involved in questions affecting refugees for such a long time, and I was so much impressed by Lord Elton's report and the moving way in which he put over the whole subject, that I feel I want to add a very few words to what has already been said. I agreed so much with Lord Gladwyn when he pointed out that here we were, celebrating Human Rights Day with a wonderful speech in Trafalgar Square, knowing full well—those of us who study these matters—the ghastly things which are happening in the area in the Far East that we have been talking about. This must make all our consciences feel very anxious and disturbed, because it is something about which we are really all concerned. I read in an article in the Economist the following passage: It is much better to draw a line under history and to regard today's refugee problem as only the latest in a long line of migrations from tyranny. As such, the responsibility for alleviating it belongs to every country which claims to be concerned about human rights. Every country, my Lords—and all the speakers this evening have spoken about the many countries that we should like to help.

I still think that it is fundamentally the first charge on the High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations. The High Commissioner has a great standing in the world. As the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, has said, the High Commissioner can do things which put him in a different position from the wrangles, debates and discussions that go on in the General Assembly. He has freedom to act and to work, and we all know how remarkable many of the High Commissioners have been. I think the last High Commissioner, Sadruddin Aga Khan, has been a very remarkable High Commissioner and has done a remarkable job.

What Lord Gore-Booth said about money is, of course, the key to the whole thing, and the only contribution that I can really make on this stems from my experiences back in the years 1959 and 1960, when the whole United Nations and the whole world joined together in a great appeal for World Refugee Year. I have in my hand, my Lords, the final account of the United Kingdom's appeal for World Refugee Year, which raised more than I think had ever been raised for any great international or national appeal. We started out with the idea of getting £2 million. We raised £10.5 million in a little over a year. We raised just under £10 million in one year, and then another £1 million came in because it was already all planned. My Lords, I think that if people really realised all that has been said today by your Lordships in this House about the things they have experienced and know and understand—Lord Tanlaw, with his long experience; Lady Vickers, with her experience; and Lord Gore-Booth—things might be different. All these things are not known to the British public; they do not know about them.

I well remember, in World Refugee Year, thinking at the outset, when I was invited to be chairman of the appeal and was asked to raise £2 million, that it would be quite impossible to do, because the British public would not understand about refugees. We did not have a great many refugees in this country, and no problems like the present-day. I was wrong. The response all over the world was terrific. Perhaps it would be more difficult to do today; I do not know. The result of this appeal was to clear all the camps in Germany. That was the main appeal at that time because it was the aftermath of the war; and that is where the refugees were. Today, they are further afield. Nevertheless, I think that if the delegates from the United Kingdom, in going to the United Nations, could do what the delegates did in those days and persuade the United Nations that this is a subject which they could well put on their agenda in order to raise really huge sums of money to give towards the administration and help of the High Commissioner, so that he can get into the countries in question and really help, then that would probably meet with a very much better response than people think today.

It is difficult for us here. We all of us know what our financial situation is, and I fully understand that it is very difficult for our Government to give large sums of money. But on these occasions the British public and the public all over the world respond to appeals if they are worldwide. I should not be surprised if the High Commissioner were suddenly to find that he had some hundreds of millions of pounds which he could devote to this work; because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, that it is only through the work on the ground that we are really going to be able to tackle this terrible problem.

I should like to add my words of support to the voluntary organisations who are working in these countries now. It is incredible the number of people who devote their lives to work of this kind. When it comes to organisations like Christian Aid, Oxfam, Save the Children Fund, the International Red Cross and UNICEF, all those organisations have had such experience in this matter and they have been doing it for years. They did it after the last war and they have been doing it ever since. They have such experience that, if more money was available, they would be able to increase their work far more economically and with greater experience than anyone coming from any other form of administration. I would add my pleas to those who have spoken in favour of the voluntary organisations and of giving them more money.

My Lords, to me, it is terribly depressing to think that, after all these years and after the great efforts made, this is still going on and we still have these appalling conditions in countries where, year by year, things get worse instead of better. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, when he was talking about the influence of a few people who are very extreme and who can get the ear of, perhaps, not very well-educated people and influence them en masse. I believe that that is all too true. It is one of the things that we ought, all of us, to try to fight in any way we can, not by extremism but by wisdom and by tact and also by education, provided the education is of liberal kind.

I am sure the Government are sympathetic. In all my experience, Governments have been sympathetic toward refugees in giving what they can. I am sure that this Government are no exception but I would suggest to them that there is something to be said for trying to get, through the United Nations, a great appeal throughout the whole world for more money for what we want to do. It is only by money, by backing up the organisations on the ground, by appealing to people on humanitarian grounds, that we shall really make any inroads into this problem. I am sure that out of our debate today some publicity, some knowledge, may spread through the United Nations, and that this will be of assistance to the Government and, above all, of assistance to the people working in these countries.

8.4 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts)

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, deserves the gratitude not only of your Lordships' House but of a much wider audience for having initiated this debate and for having done so not only with a remarkable speech but on the basis of direct experience of the region and the peoples for whom he spoke so movingly. We are grateful to him and we are also grateful to those who have taken part in this debate.

The noble Lord described a state of affairs stemming from the recent upheaval in Indo-China which reasonable men and women can only regard as appalling. He compared them to the Jacobin excesses of two or more centuries ago. I would agree with him that they are of Jacobin or even Hitlerian proportions and character. How many innocent people have perished at the hands of these new rulers or have died unseen while trying vainly to flee, we shall probably never know. What we do know is that here and now, years after the revolution whose leaders claimed to seek a better life for their peoples, countless numbers are willing to incur great risks in a search for the basic elements of a civilised life or even to survive at all. Even the discomforts and the dangers of a refugee camp, the conditions of which we have heard described so graphically tonight, are found better by these thousand of people than the prospect of returning to countries which are now in the grip of a despotism far more brutal and ruthless than any which preceded it—countries which were formerly renowned for their gentle civilisations.

The noble Lord referred to Cambodia, particularly, where the régime's barbarism towards its population is abominable by the standards of any age. A number of those who took part in the debate—in asking the question, what can we do?— have said, among other things (I will come to the other things in a moment) that we must condemn what is happening, especially in Cambodia, in Thailand, as a result of the Cambodian atrocities.

I can assure this House that Her Majesty's Government not only condemn without measure what has happened and is happening, but also are preparing to do so even more strongly in the near future. I, myself, have condemned in this House these Cambodian atrocities as long ago as May 1976; and my honourable and right honourable friends have, similarly in another place, expressed Her Majesty's Government's abhorrence at the behaviour of the Cambodian regime.

Our concern has been made known directly to representatives abroad and our representative to the Third Committee of the United Nations Organisation has repeated our views there. Noble Lords may recall that, as a further indication of our attitude, the Government acted on 24th October to inform the Cambodians that we no longer intended to appoint an ambassador to their country. We now propose to take a further action in condemnation and exposure of these practices at the next meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights; that is, in February 1978. I believe that a colleague of mine in the other place informed Members there that we were considering this.

I am able to tell this noble House tonight that we will raise the matter in the Human Rights Commission, and I hope some at least of our friends and allies will support us in our action. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, asked us to invite our friends and allies particularly in the Nine to do so. I hope they will. We have already approached them and we will approach them again; but we will go ahead, whatever number support us in this matter. Indeed, we have gone further than most countries to condemn what is happening in Cambodia—and our colonial connection with that part of the world is not as close as that of some others.

We must recognise, of course, that the leaders of this régime care little for the concern felt abroad that their behaviour has aroused, and that there is very little we can do to assist the people who are forced to continue living inside Cambodia. However, there are others, by their scores of thousands, who have escaped, and the British Government are well aware of the burden which the Government of Thailand have incurred, through offering succour to these refugees. According to the figures that I have seen, as many as 88,000 of these unfortunates may now be in Thailand, and these include some 73,000 Laotians, some 14,000 Cambodians and about 1,000 Vietnamese; but many others, of course, have moved through Thailand for resettlement elsewhere.

The Thai Government has made considerable efforts at great cost to itself to supplement the great work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I was glad to hear tributes paid in the course of this debate to Sadruddin Aga Khan, with which I and the noble Lord opposite me would wish to be associated most warmly. For 10 years he has dedicated himself to this work of helping the refugees of the world. He has now indicated to the Secretary-General of the United Nations that he wishes to lay down this particular burden, and I have no doubt he will pick up other equally heavy burdens in a cognate connection. We were all delighted to see the terms in which the Secretary-General accepted his resignation and thanked him for the great work he performed in this field.

The High Commission for Refugees, the World Food Programme and, as we have heard, a number of voluntary agencies—some of them in association with Governments in South-East Asia—have been active and effective in this field. I join with those who pay tribute to the voluntary associations—a number of them were named here tonight. One could add to the list, of course, Whatever enormities are perpetrated against people in this and other areas of the world, it is always a fact that these magnificent men and women come forward in the work of rescue and succour.

I am glad to say that the British Government have—as have successive British Governments, of course—contributed generously in support of these efforts. To take our performance in the most recent years—because the noble Lord wished to direct our attention to this—we pledge £350,000 for the 1977 regular programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Part of this covered activities in South-East Asia, and this year we have pledged a further £350,000, and for next year £400,000. Additionally, in June of this year the Government contributed a quarter of a million pounds towards the High Commissioner's programme for providing additional material assistance to refugees and displaced persons in Thailand and other countries which received refugees, many of them from Cambodia. This was a special effort to help their resettlement. Moreover, my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development has decided, subject to Parliamentary approval—which I have no doubt will be forthcoming—to increase this contribution of a quarter of a million pounds to three-quarters of a million pounds.

I hope that we may agree that these regular contributions together with these special substantial contributions are not only worthwhile in themselves but give tangible effect to the concern in this country for what is happening in South-East Asia. Additionally, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has agreed to admit to this country refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia— that is to say, people who have had previous connections with the United Kingdom. He has also agreed that Indo-Chinese already here, who do not want to return to their country of birth, will not be required to do so. In response to the international appeal by the High Commissioner for Refugees on behalf of the "small boat" refugees from Vietnam, the Government have agreed—as we have heard—to accept a quota of 116. That quota is now nearly filled and we are considering what further measures may be taken.

We have, as we have also heard, traditionally set a good example to other nations in the assistance that we have given to refugees from all parts of the world. We shall not fail to do so in the future; but the scale of the present problem is such that its solution must be an international one. It is for this reason that so much of our effort has been aimed at assisting the international agencies as a Government, assisting the High Commission and, indeed, as individuals and organisations in our country, responding wherever the call has been made by the voluntary organisations.

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his most moving address, proposed a number of initiatives which the Government could take to help deal with the problem of refugees. I have shown already that we are taking action in many of the areas to which he has referred. We have been foremost among those who have condemned events in Cambodia; we propose to take the lead in the Human Rights Commission in a few weeks' time. Secondly, we are increasing our support for international agencies to bring relief to refugees in Thailand and elsewhere. Thirdly, we are considering what more we can do to assist with resettlement. I take very much on board the suggestion that we might look at the possibility of increasing our reception of refugees.

We have, of course, done a great deal of this in fairly recent years, and while I join with others in expressing admiration for the performance of other countries, they have had a connection with this part of the world which we have not had. And in those parts of the world where our connection—colonial and otherwise—has been closer than theirs, I think our receptivity to displaced persons has been perhaps a little greater than theirs. It varies according to circumstances and to historical connections.

Nevertheless, we are considering what more we can do to assist with resettlement. We shall not fail to consider the further points which the noble Lord has raised and which have been raised by others, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, and by both the noble Baronesses who spoke. I very much welcome what has been said by the noble Baronesses and the fact that they stressed the importance of the voluntary contribution. It is the duty of Governments to contribute, for example, to the international agencies set up by the United Nations. It is an obligation on individuals to respond to the call of organisations which try in a voluntary way to provide the money, the manpower and the womanpower to assist refugees in every part of the world. So, my Lords, in stimulating Governments, let us also encourage individuals.