jad@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (john.a.dinardo) (01/16/90)
The New York Times, Jan. 11th:
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"HONG KONG CAMPS TERMED INHUMAN"
An American refugee monitoring group said today that conditions in
Hong Kong's closed detention camps for Vietnamese, where more than
44,000 men, women and children are imprisoned, were "inhuman."
"These people are warehoused, stacked in living quarters that are
totally inhuman," said one member of the delegation of the Women's
Commission on Refugee Women and Children, which has visited five
centers here that are closed to the press and most relief agencies.
In a statement, the group said people in the camps were "packed like
sardines in concentration camp-like conditions." The group cited a
host of problems inside, from sexual harrassment of Vietnamese women
by the guards to overflowing sewers and scanty medical care.
Liv Ullman, the actress, who works with UNICEF and is a co-chairwoman
of the visiting delegation, said that newborn babies in the camps have
been accidentally separated from their mothers and that close relatives
have been sent to different camps. Patricia Derian, the other co-chairwoman
of the group and a former United States Assistant Secretary of State
for Humanitarian Affairs, said the Hong Kong government should open the
camps to the press "because when you see high barbed wire fences,
people need to know what goes on behind them."
The group also called on Hong Kong to declare a one-year moratorium on
the forcible repatriation of Vietnamese who arrive here, pointing out
that more than 1,200 Vietnamese who have volunteered to return home
are still waiting in the camps. On Wednesday, 123 more volunteers
returned to Vietnam, bringing the total of volunteers to 995 since
the program began last March. Officials of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees said that another group of volunteers will
take off for Hanoi next week and that the voluntary program now
appears to be gaining popularity.
The British colony, which has been swamped by tens of thousands of
Vietnamese asylum-seekers in the last year and a half, began forcing
boat people to return home last month, sending 51 aboard a charter
flight to Hanoi. Of the more than 56,000 Vietnamese in Hong Kong,
only about 12,000 are considered refugees awaiting resettlement in
a third country. Unless the Vietnamese in the detention centers can
prove they are fleeing persecution, Hong Kong officials have said
they will be forcibly returned.
A spokeaman for the Hong Kong government, which has often conceded
that the camps are squalid because they are overcrowded, said that
while the government had not yet reviewed the delegation's specific
charges, members of the group have been meeting with key officials
"so we are talking with them and listening to their comments."
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John DiNardo