They all sailed into Hong Kong’s spectacular harbor with buoyant hopes of following 130,000 of their compatriots who found freedom and relative prosperity through resettlement. Now, fewer than one in five qualifies for asylum. Thanks to the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), an accord drawn up three years ago by Western and Southeast Asian nations, all boat people who have arrived since June 1988 must prove they are political refugees and not economic migrants. Those who can’t–and they are in the majority–must eventually return to Vietnam. Agreements reached last fall between London and Hanoi tighten the screws: forced repatriation for recent arrivals who fail the refugee test and for “double-backers,” who voluntarily returned once to Vietnam and double-backed to Hong Kong. The get-tough approach is a strong deterrent. Last month, for the first time in seven years, no boat people arrived in the British colony. But it still leaves in limbo the tens of thousands of detainees who wait up to three years to be screened.
Inside the crowded camps, life lurches from boredom to violence. With few organized activities and no privacy, tempers run short; turf battles over control of prostitution and drug rings often erupt in fistfights and stabbings. Last month, at the Shek Kong Detention Center, 23 people–including 10 children–burned to death during a factional brawl between southerners and northerners. The latest victims of intimidation by gangs are those who volunteer for repatriation. " I’m going home because life in the camps is worse than in Vietnam," explains Le Thi Nhuan, as she awaits a flight back to Hanoi. “I’m sick of constant sexual harassment.” Like hundreds of others, she is viewed as a traitor to the boat people’s cause. If everyone refused to go home, goes the argument, the West would have to change its policy and open its borders.
That’s not likely. Most developed nations, fearing a flood of refugees from Haiti, North Africa and East Europe, are tightening restrictions against immigrants. But the hopes of thousands of boat people are kept alive by misinformation–often from anti-Hanoi expats in southern California, other times by blunder. Last month, at a U.N. Human Rights Committee meeting in Geneva, Vice President Dan Quayle mistakenly claimed, " Every Vietnamese refugee… is a political refugee." Within hours, his words swept the camps; nearly half of the 3,000 boat people who had volunteered to go back to Vietnam changed their minds.
Those who do return face severe privation, at the very least. Political persecution is rare these days, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which monitors the 21,000 repatriated boat people. Hanoi must live up to its CPA agreement not to harass returnees or risk alienating Western and ASEAN signatories–principal sources of trade and investment. The biggest problem for boat people is finding work in a crushingly poor country where unemployment is up around 30 percent. A few returnees, like Hoang Dinh Khai, 28, actually make it. He turned a $410 UNHCR resettlement allowance into a $1,000 loan to buy three small fishing boats and nets. After 15 months Khai had saved enough to retire his debts and build a two-room cement-block house. More typical is the story of Vu Do Manh, 32. A silversmith who hasn’t worked in years, he and his wife sold their house and possessions to pay for the trip to Hong Kong. They returned nine months later, penniless and jobless. Says Manh, whose wife earns less than $1 a day selling coconuts in the Haiphong market, “I don’t see any way out of our situation.” The only way out-and the solution to Hong Kong’s refugee headache–is economic development. Progress is slow, as Vietnam recovers from decades of war, Communist mismanagement and the recent cutoff of Soviet subsidies. Money from the World Bank and a lifting of the 17-year-old U.S. trade embargo would help. But until then, the Vietnamese must struggle toward the future themselves.
title: “Between Limbo And Hell” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-31” author: “Donna Mullenax”
They all sailed into Hong Kong’s spectacular harbor with buoyant hopes of following 130,000 of their compatriots who found freedom and relative prosperity through resettlement. Now, fewer than one in five qualifies for asylum. Thanks to the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), an accord drawn up three years ago by Western and Southeast Asian nations, all boat people who have arrived since June 1988 must prove they are political refugees and not economic migrants. Those who can’t–and they are in the majority–must eventually return to Vietnam. Agreements reached last fall between London and Hanoi tighten the screws: forced repatriation for recent arrivals who fail the refugee test and for “double-backers,” who voluntarily returned once to Vietnam and double-backed to Hong Kong. The get-tough approach is a strong deterrent. Last month, for the first time in seven years, no boat people arrived in the British colony. But it still leaves in limbo the tens of thousands of detainees who wait up to three years to be screened.
Inside the crowded camps, life lurches from boredom to violence. With few organized activities and no privacy, tempers run short; turf battles over control of prostitution and drug rings often erupt in fistfights and stabbings. Last month, at the Shek Kong Detention Center, 23 people–including 10 children–burned to death during a factional brawl between southerners and northerners. The latest victims of intimidation by gangs are those who volunteer for repatriation. " I’m going home because life in the camps is worse than in Vietnam," explains Le Thi Nhuan, as she awaits a flight back to Hanoi. “I’m sick of constant sexual harassment.” Like hundreds of others, she is viewed as a traitor to the boat people’s cause. If everyone refused to go home, goes the argument, the West would have to change its policy and open its borders.
That’s not likely. Most developed nations, fearing a flood of refugees from Haiti, North Africa and East Europe, are tightening restrictions against immigrants. But the hopes of thousands of boat people are kept alive by misinformation–often from anti-Hanoi expats in southern California, other times by blunder. Last month, at a U.N. Human Rights Committee meeting in Geneva, Vice President Dan Quayle mistakenly claimed, " Every Vietnamese refugee… is a political refugee." Within hours, his words swept the camps; nearly half of the 3,000 boat people who had volunteered to go back to Vietnam changed their minds.
Those who do return face severe privation, at the very least. Political persecution is rare these days, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which monitors the 21,000 repatriated boat people. Hanoi must live up to its CPA agreement not to harass returnees or risk alienating Western and ASEAN signatories–principal sources of trade and investment. The biggest problem for boat people is finding work in a crushingly poor country where unemployment is up around 30 percent. A few returnees, like Hoang Dinh Khai, 28, actually make it. He turned a $410 UNHCR resettlement allowance into a $1,000 loan to buy three small fishing boats and nets. After 15 months Khai had saved enough to retire his debts and build a two-room cement-block house. More typical is the story of Vu Do Manh, 32. A silversmith who hasn’t worked in years, he and his wife sold their house and possessions to pay for the trip to Hong Kong. They returned nine months later, penniless and jobless. Says Manh, whose wife earns less than $1 a day selling coconuts in the Haiphong market, “I don’t see any way out of our situation.” The only way out-and the solution to Hong Kong’s refugee headache–is economic development. Progress is slow, as Vietnam recovers from decades of war, Communist mismanagement and the recent cutoff of Soviet subsidies. Money from the World Bank and a lifting of the 17-year-old U.S. trade embargo would help. But until then, the Vietnamese must struggle toward the future themselves.
