HONG KONG: THE 'HUEY FONG' TRIAL
June 1979
The arrival in Hong Kong in January 1979 of more than 3,000 Vietnamese
refugees aboard the freighter Huey Fong is the subject of a trial, involving
11 accused, which opened in Hong Kong on 7 June and is expected to last for
several weeks. Under new legislation, the Hong Kong Government is attempting
to prevent large ships from entering harbour with refugees aboard if the
Crown Colony is not the first port of call, or if the vessels concerned are
believed to be involved in the organised traffic of refugees. Penalties for
carrying excessive numbers of passengers have been raised, and ships'
captains now have to prove claims that their passengers are shipwreck victims.
The Huey Fong's Chinese captain, 52-year-old Hsu Wen-hsin, has pleaded
guilty to a charge of defrauding the Hong Kong Government with the intention
of gaining entry for the refugees, but denies a second charge of carrying an
excessive number of passengers on his ship. Several crew members and four
Vietnamese residents of Hong Kong have pleaded not guilty to similar charges
of fraud.
Prosecution evidence is that after sailing from the South Vietnamese
coast on 18 December 1978, Hsu radioed the Hong Kong Marine Department claiming
that he had rescued a large number of refugees at sea. Although repeatedly
told to make for his first scheduled port of call in Taiwan, Hsu brought the
Huey Fong to Hong Kong on 19 January 1979. Aboard were 3,318 people, nearly
half of them children. The prosecution alleges that these refugees, mainly
ethnic Chinese, were put aboard the Huey Fong in South Vietnam with the know-
ledge and active participation of the Vietnamese Government, acting in
collaboration with agents in South East Asia.
Much of the initial evidence has focussed on the alleged role of the
Vietnamese authorities in the refugee traffic. Opening the prosecution on
7 June, Crown Counsel Peter Duncan said that after registering with Vietnamese
officials before departure, the Huey Fong's passengers had been asked to pay
12 taels of gold (one tael was then worth about £100 sterling) for each adult
and one tael for each child under 16. Two taels per adult and one tael per
child went on hiring the ship; the remainder was kept by the authorities.