BOAT PEOPLE MAROONED

Brian Eads on the plight of

Vietnamese refugees imprisoned in the free world

Hong Kong 'A bundle of belongings isn't the only thing a refugee brings to his new country . . . Einstein was a refugee.'

THIS tempting observation is made on a small poster in the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), sited for obscure bureaucratic reasons on the ninth floor of a car park close to the wharfside bedlam of the Yaumati typhoon shelter.

Alas, most of the 12,000 Vietnamese 'boat people' languishing in Hong Kong, indeed most of the 36,000 throughout south-east Asia, are named Nguyen. Most, before they braved Vietnamese gunboats, bloodthirsty pirates and the caprices of the South China Sea, were fishermen, farmers or unskilled labourers. Such research physicists, brain surgeons, scholars and the like that came out were snapped Up long ago, in the heady days of 1979 and 1980 when flight from Vietnam was in the tens of thousands. Then Western nations would arrive with shopping lists of their require- ments. Ireland, I recall, was especially keen on carpenters.

Since then the flood of boat people pitching up on south-east Asian shores has been reduced to a trickle. There are several reasons for this. A programme known as 'orderly departure' has made it possible for large numbers of disaffected Vietnamese, those at least with close rela- tives already resettled in the West, to leave in the comparative safety and comfort of the Air France jumbo plying between Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Paris every Thursday.

Hanoi, meanwhile, responded to inter- national outrage over the exodus by tight- ening security. According to recent arrivals here, 60 per cent of those seeking to leave are caught. Others are deterred by harsh penalties: according to the recent arrivals these include death for former South Viet- namese army officers and ten years' impris- onment for civilians.

On top of this is an awareness of what's known in the refugee business as 'compas- sion fatigue' within Western countries. Translated into everyday English this means they believe they've done their bit for the Vietnamese. Indochina has ex- hausted the West's brief attention span. Ethiopians are the new flavour of the month.

But the trickle is a persistent one. So far this year eight boats, carrying a total of 317 people, have reached Hong Kong. By the end of the year the number of new arrivals will probably equal the number of those resettled in third countries. Between these two statistics exists a refugee population whose situation appears hopeless. There are people in Hong Kong's refugee camps who have been there for six years. Not a few of them are children born in the camps and ignorant of any other life. It could be argued, however, that they are the lucky ones among the 6,000 or so who live in what are called 'open camps' run by the UNHCR.

The camps are crowded, uncomfortable and often insanitary. Over the years they have come to resemble a microcosm of life on the outside: there are rich and poor, triad gangs, loan sharks, prostitutes. But family life is intact and, most important, refugees can go out of the camps for work and recreation.

They work in the most undesirable and dangerous jobs, notably construction, tex- tile factories and street-cleaning, often for 14 or more hours a day. But it does allow for a semblance of normal life.

The unlucky ones are the 6,000 who arrived after 2 July 1982. Hong Kong's rulers felt the territory had become a soft touch. Unlike some of their neighbours they hadn't towed refugee boats back out to sea, nor turned a blind eye as pirates raped, robbed and murdered. Everyone who reached Hong Kong was, if not exactly welcomed, accepted. From that date all new arrivals were confined in so-called 'closed camps' administered by the correctional services department. It was to be `a humane deterrent'.

It is open to debate whether or not any potential refugees were deterred. Certainly those I questioned knew nothing of 'closed' and 'open' camps. At the same time, people setting out on a 30-day voyage in an open boat are of necessity optimists.

But optimism is wearing thin for many, especially in places like Chimawan, a `closed camp' for southerners on Lantao Island, and Heilingchau, a `closed camp' for northerners on a small island once reserved for lepers. The correctional ser- vices, it sounds nicer than prisons depart- ment, say Chimawan camp is modelled on a 'minimum security prison'. And the high chain-link fences topped with barbed wire, the floodlights, the locked gates, and orderly lines of corrugated iron buildings support this. There is Appel at 06.30, communal eating and lights out. Rows of stacked shelves, each about six feet by four feet, serve as living and sleeping areas.

There is no privacy. The only work on offer is sweeping and cleaning, for about two pounds sterling a week, or piecework offered by the resident voluntary agency, the Salvation Army. Strangely this involves assembling plastic revolvers and rubber daggers.

There are English lessons for children and young adults. `I am not a millionaire,' they repeat in unison, `I wish I were a millionaire.' Some hope. Their dead are buried at Sa Ling near the Chinese border, in a graveyard for those who die in jail.

Most people in the refugee business would place the blame squarely at the door of the British Government. Last year Britain took 88 for resettlement. There are more than 400 people in Hong Kong camps with close relatives already in Britain so far denied resettlement there. Countries like the US (1,541 last year), Canada (1,008 last year), and Australia (736 last year) are looking for a lead from London before they expand their programmes.

Hong Kong, for its part, says the re- fugees cannot stay here. Given. that all illegal immigrants from China, many with family and friends in Hong Kong, arc automatically sent back, accepting Viet- namese would, it is argued, be political dynamite. `We accept that eventually some hundreds will remain here,' a Security Branch official told me. 'No more than that.' Everyone, it seems, from the long- haired young man in Chimawan, who looked at me with glazed eyes and kept repeating `It is very sad, it is very sad', to the Hong Kong, government official lamenting that `We'll be left with the rubbish', was awaiting the recent home affairs select committee report on the refugees.

It is difficult to dispute the committee's findings that Britain should take more, Hong Kong should take more and the `closed camps' should be done away with. But the findings are binding on none of the interested parties and most of the recom- mendations are at odds with current poli- cies. Repeated UNHCR appeals for the opening-up of `closed camps' have fallen on deaf ears. `If the British Government wants to solve the refugee problem it must take the lead,' says UNHCR's Peter Meij- er. `We hope that the parliamentary report will be the breakthrough.'

Some refugees have sought permission to return to Vietnam, but in practice they are not welcome there either. The ironies involved in flight to the `free world' are lost on them.