***In the wake of French President Francois Mitterrand's visit to Vietnam —the first by a Western leader since the war there ended in 1975 — comes news that more and more refugees are volunteering to return home. After the war hundreds of thousands went abroad in sear, h of a better life. More than 200,000 sought asylum in Hong Kong. There they were denied refugee status and had to live in appalling conditions. Now, as Vietnam opens up to the West, the so-called boat people are returning to their homes.
FOR Dang Hong Phong and his family, the dream is over.
in 1989. the 30-year-old electrician and his wife fled Vietnam in a dirty, overcrowded fishing boat and set sail Lr Hong Kong, dreaming of one day finding freedom and a belter life tn the United ‘ lies or Canada
Instead, they endured thrce-and-a-half years of violence, torment and despair in Whitehead detention centre, the most notorious and volatile of Hong Kong camps for Vietnamese boat people. Like thousands of others, the Dang family has finally decided that ihey have had enough.
"We came for a belter life here, but none of our dreams came true, said the soft-spoken Dang, clutching his three-year-old son in his arms.
Dangr his- wife. Ho Thu Thoa, 28, and their son, born in detention and named Hong Kong after his birthplace, have given up hope of resettlement tn the West and have volunteered lo go home to face an uncertain future in Vietnam.
Last year, almost 13,000 Vietnamese boat people like Dang volunteered to return to Vietnam after accepting the grim reality that they had little chance of being given refugee status and finding freedom overseas.
Vietnam seems finally to have got the message and Ihc initial mass exodus has been reduced to a trickle. Last year, only 12 boat people arrived in Hong Kong against 20,296 the year before. For Hong Kong, which has seen 206,293 desperate Vietnamese boat people come ashore since the
Vietnam war ended in 1975, it signals the end of an era.
As more and more Vietnamese return. Hong Koftg officials believe the crisis may
eventually be resolved.
Refugee co-ordinator Brian Brcsnihan said: "If the present rale of voluntary returns is maintained, we hope to see
some c amp closures before the end of the year. We hope to close all the camps in three years' time".
Those who do not volunteer to go home will eventually be forced back lo Vietnam under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) orderly repatriation programme. which has so far seen the return of almost 350 boat people.
Meantime, life for the 42.000 men. women and children who remain in Hong Kong camps is bleak ' 'oused tn cage-like compounds, inside barracks surrounded by mountains of barbed wire, they are often terrorised by Vietnamese gangs who rape, beat and rob their victims and even demand money before allowing mothers to take their sick children to Red Cross clinics.
The tension can sometimes be deadly. Rioting in $ck Kong detention centre last year left 23 people dead and more than 1OO injured on the eve of Tet. the Vietnamese celebration of the lunar New Year.
In that Incident, a dispute over illegal alcohol turned into a riot that .saw south Vietnamese pushing burning blankets through the windows of a tin hut packed with 200 screaming northerners. It took
rescuers days to recover the charred remains of the dead.
Some boat people, like the Dang family made their decision to return to Vietnam, tn part. to escape the violence of the eamps
We worried about our safety in Whitehead." Dang satrl through an interpreter. There were may fights there. We feared there would be more so we decided to leave."
After wathetng for three years hopes fade of finding a new home for his family, Dang and hi* wife reluctantly decided staying behind was no longer worth the risk. The Dangs were interviewed while waltihg for their flight home to Hanoi with about 140 other volunteers housed at Lo Wu detention centre near Hong Kong’s border with China.
Hong Kong Police Commandant Charles Mitchell acknowledged that the atmosphere is much calmer in a camp like Lo Wu where all the inmates have decided to return to Vietnam. Other detention centres are often more volatile.
"When a population that has been living in hope suddenly has that hope dashed, what happens then?" Mitchell asked.
. Since the late 1980s, most
bout people leaving Vietnam have been labelled economic migrants and denied refugee statu* by Hong Kong immigration officer* in a screening process monitored by the UNHCR. Those granted refugees status are slowly being resettled in countries like Canada, Ihe United States and Australia
When woodcarver Dang Thanh Hung, 30. fled the fishing village of Quang Ninh in north Vietnam on a boat with 66 other people tn 1989, he too dreamed of finding wealth and freedom in the West. Those dreams have vanished.
Now Dang hopes he will be taking his wife and tWo young sons home;. "Vietnam 1* going to change," said Dang. "Wc feel more confident going".
There is much bitterness in Dong Thanh Hung's voice as he talks about the three-and-a-half wasted years in detention in Hong Kong and the schooling his ten-year-old and six-year-old sons have missed.
"When we left Vietnam, wc had nothing and now when we go back we'll still have nothing," he said, "We came hoping to get a chance to go somewhere where we could better ourselves and make money. But we have no hope here for so long and no signs of resettlement, we Just decided to leave."
Dangs wife, Lc Thlkim Cue, 30, added: "We know that if we slay we will be forced back. So it's better to go now."
— GEMINI NEWS
FRANCES KELLY It a Canadian freelance reporter/photographer based tn Hong Kong. ‘