Rule Change on Resettlement Spurs Exodus : New Tide of ‘Boat People’ Flooding Asia

A new tide of Vietnamese “boat people” has swamped Asian countries in recent weeks, overwhelming refugee facilities and threatening to undermine an international agreement aimed at solving the problem.

Refugees in the region’s camps have increased to more than 71,000, the highest level since 1979, when an international conference set standards by which Vietnamese could be resettled in the United States and other Western nations.

Hardest hit are Malaysia, which recorded 3,400 arrivals in April, and Hong Kong, where arrivals reached 2,918 the same month and where refugees continue to pour in at the rate of 270 a day. Even the Philippines, which has received few “boat people” over the past decade, had 1,286 refugees in April--six times the number for the same period last year.

The surge occurred after members of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations announced March 14 that they no longer would automatically accept refugees for resettlement--a well-publicized move that observers believe is triggering the latest exodus from economically stagnant Vietnam.

These countries--Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines--agreed to follow the example of Hong Kong, which last June began screening arriving refugees and rejecting those considered to be fleeing economic hardship rather than political persecution.

“It’s the ‘last train from the station’ mentality that has taken hold,” one Western relief official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The announcement of the March 14 deadline without putting any other measures in place to deal with the question was an unmitigated disaster.”

Entire Families Are Leaving

One significant change, according to refugee officials, underscores the widely held belief by the “boat people” that this may be their last chance. In the past, most used to flee without relatives in the hope that others would follow; now, entire families are leaving Vietnam.

In Hong Kong, so many refugees have arrived in the past month that the government has been forced to put 1,600 “boat people” on four rented ferries moored in the harbor--a temporary measure because of the incipient danger of typhoons in the summer months. An uproar was created earlier this month when the government decided to ship 2,000 new arrivals to already crowded camps.

“The problem is accommodation,” said Michael Hanson, the British colony’s refugee coordinator. “Conditions are going to deteriorate. There’s no way to avoid it.”

And Ruby Lee, the head of the Malaysian Red Crescent Society, which cares for refugees in that country, declared: “It has to come to the breaking point. Maybe it will create an awareness so that other governments will take a decision. It’s preferable to have a crisis situation now than four weeks from now.”

Next month, a new international conference is scheduled in Geneva to decide on a refugee policy to replace the one adopted in 1979.

Draft Agreement

Under a draft agreement adopted after a preparatory meeting in Kuala Lumpur, at which the March 14 cutoff was announced, Vietnam said it would discourage illegal departures and take back “boat people” who volunteer to return home. The so-called “first asylum” countries of Asia, meanwhile, said they would receive the “boat people” and screen them for political refugees, while resettlement countries of the West, led by the United States, Canada, Australia and Britain, agreed to continue accepting political refugees.

Under the 1979 agreement, virtually all “boat people” were considered refugees and eligible for resettlement. But the mood has changed dramatically with the passage of time after the Vietnam War, and many governments now feel that the grounds for offering refugee status to Vietnamese have largely disappeared.

Even if a new final agreement is achieved in Geneva, it will take several months, or even years, to begin to implement it. Meanwhile, the refugees are expected to keep arriving in large numbers.

Pulau Bidong, a typical refugee camp on a tiny island 20 miles from the northeastern Malaysian town of Kuala Terengganu, already is extremely overcrowded and rat-infested. In the last year, the camp’s population has risen from about 5,000 to 14,359, although there are accommodations for only 6,000 people.

Congestion Growing Worse

The congestion has become so serious that authorities recently had to raise the floorboards in the refugees’ houses and move in families under the floors.

“They’re packed in so tightly, I don’t see how they’re going to get any more people in,” said Nancy Charlesworth, a nun from Buffalo, N.Y., who works with unaccompanied children who are refugees. “They’ll have to hang hammocks from the trees.”

Already, camp officials have taken over six school classrooms to use for housing, and more are threatened.

“If we have to close the schools, the young people will have nothing to do,” said Pierre Francesco, program director on the island for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

As it has become clear that Malaysia cannot proceed with its original plan to accept upward of 20,000 refugees, officials said it also is evident that the overcrowding in Pulau Bidong and other camps also could prove a significant factor in the Geneva deliberations.

Malaysia Seeks to Get Word Out

One Malaysian official conceded privately that his government would like the word to get back to Vietnam about how bad conditions are. Authorities only recently opened the camp to journalists.

In a series of interviews here, many refugees who fled Vietnam acknowledged that they were aware of the cutoff but were undeterred by it.

One was Vu Thi Kim Van, a 39-year-old mother of two with relatives in San Antonio, Tex., who arrived March 31. “I’d rather die in the sea than go back to Vietnam,” she declared, echoing the sentiments of many other refugees.

Another refugee, Nguyen Kim Lang, said she had tried several times to escape her country, only to be turned back. “I hope the Malaysian government and the U.N. will take pity on us and accept us for resettlement,” she said.

The determination of the refugees is evident from the fact that many have come across despite a series of pirate attacks that have left hundreds dead. Doan Van Ly, a former South Vietnamese army major who was released recently after 13 years in a re-education camp, has been told that three of his nephews were murdered by pirates.

‘We Won’t Stop Coming’

“I cry for my nephews, but we won’t stop coming,” Ly said. “We cannot live with the Communists.”

Virtually all the men interviewed said they had served in the army before the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975. Army service is expected to be a major criterion when the screening of refugees is started after the Geneva conference.

Public officials in Malaysia and Hong Kong are talking about a need for Vietnam to accept the notion of forced repatriation--in other words, to take back those who are not considered refugees, whether they want to go back or not. Vietnam has previously opposed forced repatriation on “humanitarian grounds”--a stand in which it finds itself in rare accord with the United States.

The issue is particularly sensitive in Hong Kong, where the British administration accepts Vietnamese “boat people” but immediately sends back refugees from China, where many Hong Kong Chinese have relatives.

Hanson, the colony’s refugee coordinator, said he feels that a refugee policy will not work without “involuntary repatriation” for “boat people” who are not admitted as political refugees.

Since June 14, Hong Kong has screened 1,463 “boat people” out of 17,000 arrivals. Of this number, only 145 have been accepted as refugees. Those not accepted are sent to closed camps, surrounded by barbed wire and operated by the prison department. Those who are accepted are sent to refugee camps that are open and where the residents may have jobs and attend schools outside.

The government caused a furor in early May by bowing to public pressure and dropping its plans to settle 2,000 refugees in a vacant public housing project called the Four Seasons. Instead, they were sent to an already overcrowded camp where authorities were forced to convert workrooms into housing space.

“Many thousands of those Vietnamese are children,” Phillip Barker, director of the Save the Children Fund in Hong Kong, said in a letter to the South China Morning Post. “Some have been pushed around like parcels five or six times in the last 18 months in the wake of so-called government policy. The use of children as pawns in an abusive ‘game’ cannot be condoned.”

In an interview, Barker said his group was considering withdrawing from the refugee program in Hong Kong because of the resources that have been wasted.

Meanwhile, some refugee experts believe that the problem of the Vietnamese “boat people” will not be solved unless all arrivals are returned to Vietnam and told to apply for resettlement under the Orderly Departure Program.

The program was created as an alternative for Vietnamese wishing to leave, and it relocated 22,000 people directly from Vietnam last year. But the waiting list is very long--people who applied in June, 1982, are only now being processed--and escaping by boat is seen as a way of jumping to the head of the line.

“It’s like buying a lottery ticket,” Barker said.