Condemnation as eviction starts

Press, 13 December 1989, Page 10

Condemnation as eviction starts

NZPA-Reuter Hong Kong Hong Kong started the mandatory repatriation of Vietnamese boat people early yesterday by flying 51 weeping asylum-seekers back to Hanoi under cover of darkness.

Human rights groups and others sharply condemned the British colony’s action, with one saying the return of boat people to the nation they risked their lives to flee was “astoundingly brutal.” The leader of Britain’s small opposition Liberal Democratic Party, Paddy Ashdown, said in London that the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher was guilty of “an act of indelible shame.” The 51 Vietnamese — nine men, 16 women and 26 children — landed safely in Hanoi without incident after a 2>/ 2 hour flight from Hong Kong on a chartered plane that left just after 5 a.m. (1 a.m. New Zealand time). Government-run Hong Kong radio reported they were given a welcoming cup of tea by Hanoi officials.

The return they had all dreaded started at Phoenix House, a high-security jail about 3km from Kai Tak Airport, when about 200 police and prison officers arrived to shepherd them into trucks in the middle of the night. Most were weeping but witnesses, including a Reuter photographer, Brad Hunt, said they saw no force used as the Vietnamese boarded the trucks. One woman shouted “Where is your humanity?” but there were no struggles. Hong Kong radio said the group had been counselled before they boarded the trucks.

After a swift run to the airport, the group was processed by immigration officers and before dawn they were on their way.

Civil aviation sources said Cathay Pacific Airways, which provided the 250-seat Lockheed Tristar aircraft, had been asked

by the Government to provide an unspecified number of similar flights in the coming weeks. “I think the idea is to get the programme going well with a series of flights and then when things are running smoothly, change to much larger numbers on ships,” an aviation industry source said. The sources said each adult had been escorted by two security guards for the flight to Hanoi, with one escort for each child under 10. The returnees had not been handcuffed.

They said the Government’s Assistant Secretary for Security, Alistair Asprey, had been aboard the aircraft, which had subsequently returned to Hong Kong.

The move drew instant criticism.

The New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights condemned the move as “astoundingly brutal” and Amnesty International begged both Mrs Thatcher and the Hong Kong Governor, Sir David Wilson, to call an immediate halt. The United States had no immediate reaction but a United States official in Washington said his Government’s position was well-known. A United States consulate spokesman in Hong Kong said on Monday Washington remained firmly and adamantly opposed to mandatory repatriation.

In Hong Kong, legislator Rita Fan, a consistent advocate of mandatory repatriation, said: “We simply have no choice. I don’t think the people involved like doing this at all, but the options are not there.” But Leonard Davis, a lecturer in sociology who has studied the Vietnamese boat people problem over the years, said: “This mandatory repatriation will have little effect in stemming the flow. “This is a very sad day for Hong Kong. It was an act of violence to drag children from their beds at 3 a.m. It was well-

prepared and well thought-out. But they haven’t thought out the reaction from abroad. We just do not know what will happen to them,” he said. Several members of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Party rallied to her side, accusing the international community of failing to find homes for the Vietnamese crammed into Hong Kong camps.

“These are not south Vietnamese refugees who have travelled at great risk ... These are from north Vietnam and they have travelled on the trade wind,” said a Conservative legislator, Hal Miller. “Unless something is done about this situation, we’re going to have another 50,000 on the next monsoon.”

Gerald Kaufman, foreign affairs spokesman of the main opposition Labour Party, called for international action in resettling political refugees. Hong Kong has some 57,000 Vietnamese boat people in its camps and detention centres, of whom 14,000 are considered genuine refugees because they arrived before screening was introduced in June last year. The remainder, more than 40,000, are considered illegal immigrants, to be deported unless they can prove they are genuine refugees under United Nations criteria.

So far 6000 of them have been screened out as illegal immigrants, and only 400 accepted as genuine refugees. Tuesday’s repatriation followed months of negotiations between Hanoi, Hong Kong and London over details.

Diplomats said Hanoi had pledged to treat returnees with compassion and not persecute them. The wording of the agreement avoided all references to forced repatriation, in deference to Vietnam’s desire not to be linked with any suggestion that people’s human rights had been violated.