Britain Delays Deportations of Boat People

Britain announced today that because of international protests it will suspend for one week the repatriation from Hong Kong of Vietnamese boat people.

Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd told the House of Commons that in response to protests from Amnesty International and opposition politicians, deportations would be suspended.

However, Hurd said Britain strongly defends its enforced repatriation of 51 Vietnamese boat people from Hong Kong on Monday and would negotiate with Hanoi for the swift return of 40,000 others.

He said the government will send two observers to Vietnam in January to monitor the fate of the first group of 51 whose safety had been guaranteed by the Communist authorities.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher earlier today defended the forced repatriations, saying the action is “perfectly in order” and that countries which object should take the boat people in.

She indicated repatriation would continue until 40,000 refugees in Hong Kong have been returned to the land they fled.

Thatcher’s junior Foreign Office Minister, Francis Maude, even cited the United States’ treatment of illegal immigrants from countries such as Mexico as justification for the British action.

“The fact is that what we undertook last night is no different from the process which the Americans take day by day in respect of people seeking to enter America illegally from Mexico, Haiti and a number of other places,” Maude said in a television interview.

In a stormy session of Commons, Thatcher said the Chinese population of Hong Kong had “suffered greatly” from the arrival of Vietnamese who were not genuine refugees.

“You cannot go on inflicting this anger on the people of Hong Kong,” she said. “It is perfectly in order to return illegal immigrants to their country of origin--otherwise there would be international chaos.”

The deportation before dawn of 51 Vietnamese refugees to Hanoi aboard a chartered airliner provoked a storm of protest in Britain from U.N. organizations, Amnesty International and political opponents.

Official embarrassment was indicated by Maude’s comment that it was “not a particularly comfortable or agreeable process.”

Opposition Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock asked Thatcher what excuse she had for “giving instructions that in the middle of the night, armed riot police raid children, women and men, shove them into caged lorries and forcibly deport them to the country from which they fled.”