Leaving the closed camp: Home Affairs Committee report offers new hope of resettlement.
process fit the needs and abilities of this group. Given a little thought and effort, the resettlement of a further 500 Vietnamese refugees should present no major problems.
Finally, the Government is likely to point to Hong Kong's difficulties in coping with refugees, and to suggest that if the closed camps are abolished, hundreds or even thousands more Vietnamese refugees will attempt to enter the territory. Three answers to this argument are contained in the Committee's report. Firstly, there is no real evidence to show that the number of refugees in Hong Kong now is any smaller than it would have been if the closed camp policy had not been initiated. Secondly, the Committee is not arguing for an increased number of refugees to be settled permanently in Hong Kong: it is proposing a means whereby the refugees in Hong Kong can be resettled elsewhere. Thirdly, the real issue at stake is one of morality: if we put people in prison whose only crime is that they have escaped from oppression, can Britain claim to be a member of the 'free world'?
This briefing paper has been prepared by the Information Section of the British Refugee Council, Bondway House, 3-9 Bondway, London SW8 ISJ. Telephone: 01-582 6922. Please contact us if you require further information about the situation of Vietnamese refugees in Britain and Hong Kong, or would like a copy of the Home Affairs Committee's recommendations.
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