More violence ‘inevitable’ in Hong Kong’s camps

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 8

More violence ‘inevitable’ in Hong Kong’s camps

NZPA-Reuter Hong Kong Fresh violence flared in a Vietnamese refugee camp and a senior Government official warned that further trouble was inevitable among the 55,000 boat people jammed into Hong Kong’s makeshift camps and detention centres.

The police said two men were arrested after Vietnamese being held aboard disused ferries started stoning the police late Tuesday night. The violence, which lasted about an hour, involved about 20 of the 2000 Vietnamese being held aboard the ferries. The stones were smuggled on to the ferries from a nearby island. It followed the far worse incident on the remote island of Tai A Chau at the week-end, when police guards were forced to flee for their lives after being attacked by some 2000 boat people.

The police said 10 men had been arrested on suspicion of rape, robbery

and assault that occurred during a 24-hour period before the police launched an air and sea assault to regain control of the island.

One refugee worker described the period as anarchy, with northern and southern Vietnamese fighting each other. The chief secretary, Sir David Ford, acting as Governor in Sir David Wilson’s absence, told reporters the Government was expecting further outbreaks of violence.

“I think we are going to have these troubles from time to time between north and south Vietnamese,” he said.

Refugee workers and Government officials have long feared an explosion of violence in the squalid, crowded camps. The colony’s Vietnamese population has mushroomed this year, with over 30,000 arrivals since January.

Hong Kong is now playing host to 55,269 Vietnamese boat people. Of that total 42,550 are con-

sidered as illegal immigrants by Hong Kong, to be held pending repatriation unless they can prove genuine refugee status under a screening process introduced in June last year.

“When you see the appalling conditions these people live in — and bear in mind they’ve endured all sorts of horrors to get here — can you wonder that they get violent?

“There’s a lot of fit young men hanging around with nothing to do. I’m amazed it has not happened before,” said one refugee worker. “In some camps all you can hear at night is the grinding noise as makeshift weapons are sharpened up.” Apart from the frustrations of camp life in Hong Kong, there is the added complication of hatred between various groups. Northerners and people from the south often clash, a legacy of Hanoi’s defeat of the United States-backed Republic of

South Vietnam in 1975. The bulk of the northern boat people come from Quang Ninh province near the Chinese border, generally reckoned to be one of Vietnam’s poorest areas. Others come from the port area of Haiphong, and refugee workers say a long-standing grudge between people from both areas often erupts in violence. Sir David Ford revealed the Government was considering making a permanent camp on Tai A Chau in the Soko Islands, which officials said could take up to 20,000 people. Hong Kong’s predominantly Chinese population has been up in arms over the presence of Vietnamese boat people, with a series of protests and petitions. Officials would eventually like to concentrate the boat people in two centres, instead of in scattered makeshift facilities near villages and housing estates as at present.