ENG-1979 — Page 31

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THE BOAT REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM

about 18 probably got through. Under these circumstances, it was with some relief that Hong Kong learned on November 2 that Chairman Hua Guo-feng, then visiting London, had told the British Prime Minister that China would take further action to deal with the situation. But relief was qualified by an awareness that remedial measures might not take immediate effect. Indeed they did not: in November 9,245 illegal immigrants were repat- riated, and a further 15,202 were returned in December.

When the Governor turned to the question of the Vietnamese refugees in his speech opening a new session of the Legislative Council in October, he summed up the prospects as follows: 'If there are no further large-scale arrivals, we can hope that the problem will gradually diminish over the next year or so. This, of course, depends on the many receiving countries continuing and increasing their efforts, and on Hong Kong getting its fair share of resettlement places. It also, of course, depends on the outward flow not restarting. If it does, it would only be as the result of a deliberate and callous decision by the Vietnamese Government. Their ability to control this movement was amply proved when they stopped it at the time of the Geneva conference.'

With this outlook in mind, Hong Kong pursued to the end of the year the concerted efforts it had made to keep the world informed of the influx and to impress on Hong Kong's friends both the gravity of the problem and the help that a relatively powerless territory needed to survive the dangers intact.

In addition to the many eminent national figures who came out for discussions and who toured the camps, hundreds of representatives of the news media made visits to Hong Kong and were given all possible help in getting the facts for their reports. The material was there: reporters' notebooks filled up apace and thousands of metres of film were shot. In September alone, documentary films for television were made by teams from seven different countries.

Parallel with this effort were the visits made overseas by public servants and leading citizens. In August, the Chief Secretary, Sir Jack Cater, went to Australia and New Zealand, where he forcefully spelled out the challenges that had been met and the difficulties which were to be faced. In the same month an unofficial body, the Hong Kong Community Committee for the Resettlement of Refugees, was taking shape. In September, two of its leading members - Dr Karl Stumpf of the Hong Kong Christian Service and Miss Dorothy Lee of Caritas - left for the United States, Canada, Britain and West Germany. The plea which they made on Hong Kong's behalf echoed and reinforced, on the unofficial plane, the case presented earlier by Sir Murray and Sir Jack.

Counting the Cost

Anyone trying to put together a 'balance sheet' on the refugees faces the difficulty of a large array of imponderable factors. If for most countries of the region 1979 was the Year of the Boat People, it was also the International Year of the Child. But how to quantify the smile of an infant being carried ashore from a horribly overloaded boat? Even if one could, how to balance this against the frustrations felt by, say, an Urban Council planning official over the fact that the refugees housed in the Sham Shui Po camp were, in effect, holding up the construction of a much needed swimming pool complex for the residents of a particularly congested area?

That there have been consolations, even gains of sorts, one cannot deny; but they have been largely of the intangible kind. Outstanding among them has been the conduct of Hong Kong as a community which, in turn, has earned the territory the respect and praise of many people. Three instances must suffice. In April, the United States Government's