Huey Fong in small craft between 16 and 18 December, the embarkation being
supervised by Vietnamese officials, Coded messages were used during the operation:
the refugees were referred to as "frozen ducks" and the rendezvous with the Huey
Fong as the "wedding date". This was part of the camouflage to justify the
diversion of the ship which purported to be on a voyage from Bangkok to a Taiwan
port to Hong Kong. One witness said that a Vietnamese landing craft had taken
him and his family to the Huey Fong; another that when the Huey Fong arrived off
the Vietnam coast in December it was met by a Vietnamese Government liaison group,
including a high-ranking official, aboard a gun boat.
The Court was also told that until October 1978, refugees had had to leave
Vietnam "illegally" although the authorities encouraged and profited from their
departure. The Vietnamese subsequently made contact with overseas Chinese
entrepreneurs so as to speed up the departures and organise them on a more
systematic and profitable basis.
prosecution
Kwok Wah-leung, a/witness who had been granted immunity from prosecution to
HK $20,000 give evidence, admitted that he had received $23,500 for his part in the operation. Liaising with the Vietnamese authorities or their representatives, he'
arranged with a Taiwan shipping company for the Huey Fong to be made available.,
Kwok told the court of Kwong Shuck, alias "Uncle Kwong", who had acted as a
financial coordinator for the Vietcong in Western Vietnam before the Communist
takeover in the South, and who helped to arrange the refugees' passage. He spoke of
meetings in a Hong Kong hotel room and at a shipping office in Taipei, and messages
from "Uncle Kwong" calling for the operation to be speeded up.
Kwok said that the money and gold to be paid by the refugees included
substantial fees for the Vietnamese authorities and about HK$1.2 million for the
owners of the Huey Fong, in addition to "rewards" for himself, "Uncle Kwong" and the accused. Kwok said he had seen Vietnamese security officials in Ho Chi Minh
City examining and weighing gold leaf, watches and jewellery taken from the
refugees before their embarkation.
W
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