PFFUGEES..2
Whatever the validity of these fears, there can be little doubt
of the preference of many of the Vietnamese residents of Hongkong's camps
to settle in America. These views were expressed to me time and time
again by the English-speaking refugees I interviewed.
Take the case of ex-Cantain Ngo Diem, formerly a pharmacist with the South Vietnamese army: A few months ago he purchased a permit to travel from Saigon to the port of Haiphong in North Vietnam. There he found a boat to take him to Hongkong, and now hopes to travel on to California
where he has Vietnamese friends who established themselves there after
South Vietnam was overrun by the Communists in 1975.
They had written to him in Saigon telling him of the possibilities
of a new career in the United States. He explained to me that the
Communist authorities in Vietnam had no use for him as a pharmacist and
that after a year-long period of "re-education" he could only find
labouring work.
He had no wish to be sent to a New Economic Zone an area of land specially designated by the authorities for new cultivation. He con- sidered his part-Chinese parentage and his record as a supporter of the former regime meant that he would never be free of suspicion and that
his only alternative was to leave. His departure had been secret.
There can be little question that the main reason for the departure of so many of the refugees is the policy of repression which has been
exercised by the authorities in Vietnam.
But it is also clear that apart from this "push" factor, there is also a "pull" factor in the form of the generally attractive image the US has in the minds of the refugees.
Now that the former society that existed in the South has been
relegated to the history books the US is the only practical alternative
to those Vietnamese who can never be reconciled to Communist rule.
Another former South Vietnamese army officer from Da Nang who had been a teacher told me that it was his wish to organise resistance to
the Vietnamese government from the US.
He refused to be photographed or to give too many personal details since he feared for the safety of his family he had left in Vietnam.
Many of those interviewed mentioned their ethnic Chinese background
as being a factor in the emnity they had experienced from the Vietnamese
authorities.
But since many Chinese in Vietnam, especially in the South, have traditionally followed commercial and mercantile occupations which are opposed on ideological grounds by Communists it is not always easy to identify Government motivation for the present policy of repression.
GAS 294/2
31.8