HONGKONG...3
It would be impossible because Vietnam would not accept them. In addition it would also invalidate all hope that overseas countries would continue to accept refugees from Hong Kong for resettlement.
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"We hear quite a lot of talk about repatriation," said the Hong Kong government official. "But that's just to keep the Executive Council quiet it will never happen."
Hong Kong's humane policy towards the refugees has not always met with the approval of the rubber stamp collection of industrialists and entrepreneurs who make up most of the non-official members of the Executive Council, which advises the Governor.
It was partly to mollify them that the closed camp policy was brought in as a "humane deterrent" to persuade boat people to sail on past Hong Kong.
The administration hoped that if news got back to Vietnam about the prison conditions of the closed camps, refugees would avoid Hong Kong.
The 3,500 or so now in enclosed conditions are unable to get out, not allowed to work or earn money and are subject to strict discipline.
There are limited education programmes for the young and a few handicrafts for others but not much else.
Not surprisingly, there have been incidents in the camps: many of the supervisory staff came originally from the tough world of prisons, and other new members of staff were specially recruited and are not highly trained. They can be authoritative and, it has been alleged, sometimes brutal.
A number of officials expect the long, hot summer months to bring new incidents which might spark an already explosive situation.
No-one can be proud of locking up over 3,500 human beings who fled their homes as refugees. Yet there is no easy answer.
Critical overseas countries are not exactly rushing to take in the refugees
themselves.
To maintain justification for the closed camps, the Hong Kong government must be able to demonstrate that the policy works, that refugees are kept away from the colony. If refugees are not discouraged from arriving, there is no justification for the policy.
The summer months will tell. If the flow of refugees is maintained, the administration will probably have to abandon the policy.
It is already proving an expensive way of keeping refugees, both for the administration and for the United Nations. There is a strong possibility that the UN, already disturbed by the policy's human rights implications, will refuse to contribute to the upkeep of the camps.
Now is the time of greatest exodus, with the onset of the summer winds
which prevail from May until September.
That is why the little group which decided to continue to Taiwan caused such excitement: it was the first positive sign that the policy may justify itself.
GN 31653
10/6
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