TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 274

HONGKONG...2

There are now about 12,000 refugees in Hong Kong, only about 3,500 of

whom are resettled each year.

Even without further arrivals, it would take four years to empty the

camps - and more are still coming.

Another aspect of the problem which worries Hong Kong government officials is fear of public reaction against the refugees.

Many Hong Kong residents have family members in China who they are not allowed to bring into the colony. They resent the fact that the Vietnamese were not only allowed to stay, but were later accepted for immigration to countries like America and Australia which are slow to take emigrants from Hong Kong.

"Quite frankly," said one top government official, "the best thing to do with the Vietnamese is to open the gates of the camp and let them out. Within two hours, three would have staged bank robberies, two more would have committed murders and the other 12,000 would have disappeared into the local population."

The latter part of his statement is borne out by the record of the 14,000 boat people who have already been resettled locally with few problems.

However, with the fear of civil unrest in the forefront of government thinking, it was felt that merely letting the Vietnamese out into the streets to make their

own way would have caused an outcry. Hence, the closed camp policy.

Raymond Hall, Deputy Chief of Mission for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, commented: "The problem now is that many of the boat people arriving are not refugees according to the classic definition those who fear persecution

if they return home.

"They're not, as they were back in 1975, the intellectuals and those who worked closely with the Americans during the war.

"Now they are 98 per cent Vietnamese

not ethnic Chinese who are

mainly fishermen or farmers from small coastal villages.

"They're young, mainly under 25, and want a better life elsewhere or just

don't want to join the army."

Nevertheless, the UN does not reject the care of these new-style boat people because one essential criteria of the definition of a refugee is present the Vietnamese government refuses to take them back after they have left.

"Sometimes we've had cases of accidental refugees young children taken away on boats who never meant to leave the country", says Hall. "Even in these cases, where their parents are asking for them and they want to go back to their families, we've had great trouble persuading the Vietnamese government to allow them back in."

This makes nonsense of the now frequently muttered threat from Hong Kong government officials that they will start repatriating new arrivals of boat people

from Vietnam.

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