Violence by ‘Boat People’ Stirs Drive to Send Them Home : Asia: Determination in Hong Kong is intensified. U.N. official throws his weight behind the effort to repatriate Vietnamese.

Recent violence in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Hong Kong, rather than fostering outside sympathy for the detainees’ hopes of resettlement abroad, is intensifying the determination of authorities to send most “boat people” back to Vietnam.

Robert van Leeuwen, the top U.N. refugee official in Hong Kong, threw his weight behind repatriation efforts with a statement Friday calling for efforts to speed up the return to their homeland of the 100,000 or so Vietnamese refugees now in Southeast Asian and Hong Kong camps.

Van Leeuwen, head of the Hong Kong office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, made his comments to reporters in the British colony in response to Monday night’s fighting and arson at Shek Kong Detention Center, where 22 refugees burned to death while trapped inside a building. Most or all of those who died were northern Vietnamese who were awaiting voluntary repatriation to Vietnam.

“Time is of the essence, if further tragedies are to be averted,” Van Leeuwen said. “We must give the tens of thousands of Vietnamese in the detention camps of Southeast Asia . . . a new lease on life in Vietnam as quickly as possible.”

Almost 60,000 Vietnamese are being held in Hong Kong detention centers, with close to 20,000 at camps in Indonesia and thousands more in other Southeast Asian nations. Only a small percentage are likely to win approval for resettlement in the United States and other Western countries.

Clinton Leeks, the Hong Kong government’s refugee coordinator, said Wednesday that the camp violence “does underline the message we’ve been saying for years, that it can’t be right to just leave these people stuck in camps. If the only permanent home we can find is Vietnam, then that means we must work hard on repatriation.”

Court hearings began Friday for 92 Vietnamese facing criminal charges in connection with the Monday night brawl. The prosecution asked that all 92 be held in police custody until Feb. 24, while investigators look into possible additional charges of arson and murder. Authorities have indicated that at least three people are suspected of arson.

An “independent inquiry” into the camp violence is also being launched, Hong Kong Gov. David Wilson announced Friday.

Police have said that the Monday incident was sparked by an argument over hot water.

But there were some indications that tensions over repatriation also played a role. The Hong Kong government has launched a program of forced repatriation of those “boat people” judged to be economic migrants rather than political refugees. One purpose of this program is to pressure camp residents to return home voluntarily. Most who died Monday had volunteered to return to Vietnam.

Among the issues that could be addressed by the government inquiry is the question of whether it was a mistake to place this group of volunteers for repatriation, who came from northern Vietnam, in the Shek Kong camp. It is populated primarily by people from southern Vietnam who have rejected the idea of returning home.

Many in the camps have sought to maintain solidarity in refusing repatriation, in hopes that this would boost chances of opening doors to resettlement in the West. Those who volunteer to return home face resentment from others who dream of new lives in the United States or Europe.

The forced repatriation program has succeeded in prompting growing numbers of camp residents to volunteer for return to Vietnam, and more than 3,000 people are now awaiting flights home.

But the repatriation process faces delays from reluctance by Hanoi to receive too many returnees too quickly.