At the Heart of Vietnam: Old Dogma and New Possibility : U.S. moves toward normalization as desperate boat-people drama heats up

Sometime next month 222 Vietnamese who are now in Hong Kong internment camps will be forcibly repatriated to their homeland, the result of an agreement arduously negotiated between Hanoi and the British government. The Vietnamese are known as “double-backers,” meaning that this is the second time they will have been repatriated from the Crown Colony. The first time was voluntary, when each was paid up to $410 provided by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees to go home to Vietnam. This time, of course, there will be no reward for leaving, although a planeload of other boat people who were paid to volunteer for repatriation left Hong Kong this week. That still leaves more than 64,000 boat people vegetating in Hong Kong camps. Eventually, probably 55,000 or so are destined to be forcibly sent home.

It’s a sad fate but not one that Britain or local authorities can fairly be held responsible for. The great mass of Vietnamese who have risked death at sea to travel to Hong Kong have come in search of a better economic life. That, under international law, is their undoing.

Only a small portion of the boat people can legally qualify as refugees eligible for asylum because only a small portion can show that if they had stayed in Vietnam or if they returned they would face persecution. The typical boat person of course knows nothing of the vital distinctions made by international law. That helps explain why nearly 20,000 have made their way to Hong Kong so far this year, 3,000 in September alone.

What Vietnamese do know is that their lives at home are a daily chronicle of deprivation and misery. The Vietnam that was united in 1975 after more than two decades of separation and three decades of war now has a population of more than 68 million, and a woeful per capita income of under $200 a year. What’s perhaps remarkable is not that so many Vietnamese have fled but that so many more have not tried.

Vietnam’s economic horizon may, however--just may--be getting a little brighter.

With this week’s signing of a Cambodia peace treaty, Secretary of State James A. Baker III has moved to make good on Washington’s pledge of last April to begin normalizing relations with Hanoi. The planned four-stage process, which could be completed by early 1993, is tied to successful implementation of the Cambodia peace agreement and is conditional on cooperation from Vietnam in resolving the emotionally charged issue of accounting for Americans missing since the Vietnam War.

Baker says he expects talks on normalization to begin within a month. If all goes well, a partial lifting of the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam could come soon.

The goal is full trade, diplomatic and economic ties by the time the process is completed. That would clear the way for private U.S. investment in Vietnam and encourage wider foreign investment there generally. All this assumes, to be sure, that Vietnam’s communist rulers are finally ready to put aside their discredited dogmas and adopt more pragmatic economic and political policies.

Meanwhile, the problem and the plight of the boat people remain. Of the 21,000 or so who have been screened by Hong Kong authorities, only 2,300 have been found to qualify for refugee status. The rest, with tens of thousands to follow, face forced repatriation. It is not a pleasant thing to contemplate.

Neither is it pleasant when Italy forcibly repatriates thousands of Albanians fleeing destitution, or when the United States turns back Haitians seeking to escape the abysmal poverty of their homeland. But it is what happens in a world where there is no universal standard for providing haven for economic refugees.

One positive note: Britain says its monitoring has found that Vietnam is keeping its word that boat people who return--in recent years about 10,000 have done so--won’t be persecuted. That’s a small blessing. The real blessing will come when Vietnam at last chooses to escape its tragic past and free up its human and natural resources on behalf of economic growth.