PTZAKT (3)
5. Of the journalists who have visited returned families in
Vietnam, Christopher Lockwood of the Daily Telegraph has been the
most recent to write on the subject. In an article published on 29
August 1989, he said:
"Sending people back against their will is abhorrent, but it is
done by most countries that attract illegal immigration. It is
argued that the Vietnamese differ in that they are refugees but
from Communism. Yet I have visited seven or eight families who have
voluntarily returned from Hong Kong to Hanoi and Haiphong and found them not significantly poorer than illegal immigrants sent home by
America, Britain, Mexico or Turkey. Nor, it strongly appears, do
the returnees suffer persecution. The United Nations Staff in Hanoi
have good access to them, and so do visiting journalists. Even
deserting soldiers have had their punishments quashed, so gentle are
the gloves with which Vietnam, its eye on foreign credits, must
treat the returning fugitives.'
"