2
end of May 1979 1,000 were arriving in Hong Kong daily: on one day in June nearly 3,000 arrived. Dr Waldheim said in May that over a quarter of a million refugees were then in transit camps in South-East Asia awaiting resettlement. An official statement issued on 17 May after a conference in Jakarta on the problem quoted estimates of 200,000 refugees from Indochina encamped in Thailand, 70,000 in Malaysia, 14,000 in Indonesia and 10,000 in the Philippines. (The numbers have since increased, almost doubling in Indonesia), In Hong Kong, a territory of 400 square miles, whose population has increased sevenfold from 600,000 in 1945, nearly 50,000 are in camps, and thousands more are waiting to land. (Difficulties are compounded by a flow of legal and illegal immigrants from China).
Organised exodus
A further 800,000 to 1.25 million refugees are expected to leave Vietnam if the Vietnamese Government does not change its current policy of openly discriminating against Vietnamese citizens of Chinese origin. Police interviews with refugees arriving in Hong Kong confirm that ethnic Chinese Vietnamese citizens of Chinese descent, sometimes after several generations of family residence in Vietnam are subject to a systematic campaign of pressure and intimidation designed to get them to leave.
-
In North Vietnam ethnic Chinese have been dismissed from government employment, forbidden to work in some 15 specified occupations or to conduct private business. They are not allowed to associate with other Vietnamese. Their schools have been closed and their children not allowed to attend other schools or learn a trade. Those forced over the border into China include carpenters, fishermen, craftsmen and factory workers. Harassment by public security officials includes imprisonment without cause and looting of houses. They have to choose between leaving the country or being sent to a "New Economic Zone", where they live in conditions of great hardship.
In either case, their property is confiscated. Threats have been made of "liquidation" or imprisonment in the event of future hostilities with China. In the city of Cholon, in South Vietnam, where many lived, more than 30,000 private businesses were closed down a year ago and residents forced into "New Economic Zones". The departure overseas of ethnic Chinese there is now government controlled and directed by radio and poster announcements of registration arrangements. The persecution is not limited to Vietnamese of Chinese ethnic origin. The same means are being used against South Vietnamese members of the old middle class. Such ethnic Vietnamese have been able to buy documents from public security officials at fees equivalent in gold to £2,800 sterling, showing them as ethnic Chinese and therefore entitled to leave in an operation primarily aimed at the Chinese community. Reports at the beginning of June indicated that, while boats arriving in Malaysia and Hong Kong until recently carried passengers mainly of Chinese descent, the element of ethnic Vietnamese was rising.
Accounts by refugees confirm that the refugee traffic is organised at all stages by the Public Security Bureau (PSB). Its officials provide boats, negotiate transportation, check passenger manifests, search boats before departure and confiscate valuables. Before leaving from the Vung Tau area, deportees have been required to sign a declaration saying: "I am happy to give all this property to the Vietnamese Government. The government is very good to give me the opportunity to see my family". The passage of boats from inland by canals and rivers is cleared through provinces under separate administrations. Boats leaving the coast are officially escorted to avoid interference by normal patrols. People seeking to evade the controls and to make their own way are at great risk. In December 1978 a junk which left the Ho Chi Minh City area without permission, carrying about 220 refugees including 60 nuns and priests, was fired on by the Vietnamese authorities. Only 16 people survived.