Hong Kong Boat People Hit Hurd, Repatriation Policy

Chanting and banner-waving Vietnamese boat people confronted British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd during his visit to a refugee camp today, condemning London’s policy of forced repatriation of asylum seekers.

More than 1,000 Vietnamese at the Hei Ling Chau camp shouted anti-repatriation slogans and waved clenched fists during Hurd’s visit, protesting the policy that sent 51 boat people back to Hanoi last month in a secretive, pre-dawn roundup.

While boat people in the camp chanted and marched, Hurd, on the final day of his four-day visit to the British colony, toured screening facilities used to separate some of Hong Kong’s 56,000 boat people into two categories--political refugees or economic migrants.

Only genuine political refugees are eligible for resettlement in the West. The rest--an estimated 90% of those in the camps--face return to their homeland or years in Hong Kong’s squalid detention centers.

Hurd arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday in a bid to restore public confidence shaken by China’s bloody June crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing and to see first-hand the huge refugee problem faced by the already crowded territory.

Hong Kong is due to be returned to Chinese rule in 1997 at the expiration of Britain’s 99-year lease on the colony, but tens of thousands of the colony’s 5.7 million people have emigrated due to fears of Beijing’s takeover.

At a news conference before leaving the colony, Hurd told reporters that repatriation--voluntary or forced--is the only way to stop the mass outpouring of Vietnamese into the South China Sea.

He said Britain will continue forced repatriations in hopes of deterring would-be boat people from leaving Vietnam but gave no schedule for a second group.

Hurd said he hopes that nations that have criticized the forced return of boat people will take a more practical stance on the policy during a U.N. meeting on refugees in Geneva this month.