2
suppression of business and confiscation of property, were now
being presented with a dire choice: removal as labourers to "new
economic zones" in areas of the countryside least capable of sustaining
life, or escape by raising enough gold or hard currency to buy permission
to leave. It was also rumoured that the Vietnam Government was, directly
and through semi-official intermediaries, encouraging syndicates to
make profits from potential fugitives by embarking them secretly on
old cargo ships, and dumping them on neighbouring countries under the
pretext of having rescued them at sea. As is well known, these reports
proved all too true.
4.
But if the organised large-vessel incidents (like the
"Huey Fong", which reached Hong Kong in December 1978 with over 3,000
on board) were the most dramatic manifestation of the outflow, smaller
boats kept the rate of arrival in Hong Kong alarmingly high in 1979.
In January of that year, more than 2,000 Vietnamese refugees reached
Hong Kong in such boats, to join an existing refugee population of
(Arrivals in January, including those aboard the Huey Fong,
totalled 5,393 but departures for resettlement in the same period
amounted to only 314. These totals set a pattern which grew more
pronounced in later months.)
5,391.
5.
The situation in Hong Kong reached its worst in May and
June 1979. In May, 18,688 refugees arrived and only 500 were resettled;
in June, 19,651 arrived and only 1,608 were resettled.
6.
During this period, about 80 per cent of the boat refugees
coming from Vietnam were of Chinese ethnic origin, and the accounts
they gave on arrival confirmed that the Chinese community in Vietnam was
being systematically forced out of the country.
17.