Rep. Dornan Blamed for a New Flood of ‘Boat People’ : Vietnam: He suggested resettling thousands of refugees in Kuwait. The idea quickly took on a life of its own.

With departures of “boat people” from northern Vietnam once again swelling, refugee officials contend that a proposal by an Orange County congressman to resettle Vietnamese in Kuwait appears to have turned the exodus into a genuine flood.

Like a medieval Asian folk tale, reports of the resettlement idea have been embroidered and passed on throughout Vietnam, spinning mythic visions of riches in the Middle East as well as the prospect of resettlement abroad. Refugee officials said the result has been exactly the opposite of the original intention--crowding the camps with even more pathetic boat people rather than emptying them out.

The idea was raised in March by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who suggested to Secretary of State James A. Baker III and the emir of Kuwait that they study the feasibility of moving more than 100,000 Vietnamese from camps in Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf emirate.

Saying his idea was “a speculative proposal,” Dornan said Monday that he never intended to start a stampede out of Vietnam. He said he did not want to encourage anyone to flee the country.

“These are absolutely unintended consequences,” Dornan said in a telephone interview. “I don’t want anyone to leave the misery of Vietnam for the misery of the camps.”

In his March 15 letter, Dornan wrote: “The Vietnamese refugees are people in need of a country. Kuwait is a country in need of people. The law of supply and demand suggests a solution: Send Vietnamese boat people to help rebuild war-torn Kuwait.”

Dornan, whose Garden Grove constituency includes several thousand expatriate Vietnamese, publicized his proposal, and it soon took on a life of its own. Rumors started spreading in earnest in Vietnam when a summary of the idea was broadcast in Vietnamese by the Voice of America, which gave it additional credence, according to refugee officials.

Now, boat people arrive in Hong Kong saying, “I want to go to Kuwait,” the officials said.

“Given the disposition of people in Vietnam, this (Dornan letter) has acted as something of a trigger,” said Clinton Leeks, Hong Kong’s refugee coordinator. “Once triggered, the flow has been almost impossible to stop. The tragedy is that people arrive here and realize that it’s all absolute nonsense.”

In the wake of the congressman’s letter, the State Department quickly issued a rejoinder to Dornan suggesting that there is little prospect for Vietnamese resettlement in Kuwait and pointedly noting that many American workers are hoping to get jobs there.

Hong Kong officials were particularly upset because after many years of receiving increasing numbers of boat people, a campaign of information and forced repatriation last year had substantially reduced departures from northern Vietnam.

Only 400 northerners arrived in Hong Kong in 1990. But this year, 4,480 boat people have already arrived, and the level is approaching 100 a day, according to Leeks. There are 54,000 people wedged into Hong Kong’s overcrowded facilities, and the “sailing season” from Vietnam has just begun.

“It’s causing major damage in central and northern Vietnam,” said Alexander Casella, a special adviser to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “What started out as a vote-getting gimmick in Orange County has ended up destabilizing Vietnam.”

Officials said the rumors do not seem to have affected departures from southern Vietnam, which remain down from last year.

Casella noted that it now costs just $50 for a Vietnamese to buy bus transportation through China to Hong Kong, making the trip easy for a determined migrant.

Casella appeared on national television in Vietnam in an attempt to dissuade people from the belief that jobs were being offered to Vietnamese in Kuwait.

He said that the rumors in Vietnam had reached a fever pitch, with one report even suggesting that a ship was already anchored off Macao, a Portuguese colony near Hong Kong, to ferry the Vietnamese to the Middle East.

While the offer of a job in Kuwait may seem whimsical to many Westerners, the Dornan proposal appears to have touched a wellspring of discontent in Vietnam stemming from deteriorating economic conditions, including widespread unemployment in the north.

It also appears to have raised hopes that the United States would not insist on boat people returning to Vietnam if their applications for refugee status are rejected, as is the case in the overwhelming number of applications from residents of northern Vietnam.

“It’s very sad that Vietnam is such a human rights basket case that the rumor market can get people to risk their lives to get to these miserable camps,” Dornan said. He added, however, that he was “astounded” that word of his proposal would reach Vietnam so quickly.

Vietnamese-language copies of the Dornan proposal are now circulating in the refugee camps of Southeast Asia, apparently causing an abrupt fall-off in the number of Vietnamese who are volunteering to go back to Vietnam after being rejected for refugee status.

According to Leeks, while 800 boat people volunteered to return to Vietnam from Hong Kong last November, the number shriveled to only 62 in March.

“People are coming, but virtually no one is going back,” he said.

Dornan said Monday that he still had not heard back from the Kuwaitis.

Before 1989, Vietnamese reaching Hong Kong or Southeast Asia were automatically granted refugee status, and nearly all were resettled in the West. Recently, however, the so-called “first asylum” countries have been screening arrivals for genuine refugees, leaving those rejected to remain in the camps or return home.