Extract from The Asia Letter #1826, February 28, 2000 (fwd)

["M.G.G. Pillai" <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

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Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 04:40:57 -0800
From: Asia Letter Publishers <editor@asialetter.com>
To: asialetter@topica.com
Subject: Extract from The Asia Letter #1826, February 28, 2000

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Extract from The Asia Letter #1826, February 28, 2000


Dear Sir,

Something that received very little fanfare or recognition last week was 
the decision by Hong Kong to issue identity cards to its remaining 1400 
Vietnamese boat people classified as refugees but who cannot get 
resettled anywhere else. They arrived between 1975 and 1985, 
half-starved in unseaworthy boats having run a gauntlet of piracy and 
storms and had been held until 1997 mostly in secure prison camps within 
sight of the Hong Kong skyscrapers.

The final admission by the Hong Kong government that it is stuck with 
these people draws to a close a 25-year period in which more than 
200,000 Vietnamese refugees passed through the SAR, in an attempt to 
escape poverty and persecution and find a new life in the West. 

Hong Kong was known as a ‘soft touch’ and, despite locking these 
unwelcome guests in internment camps it at least processed their claims 
and did not turn their leaky boats back out to sea at the point of a 
gun, as was the common solution with other Asian countries that 
encountered them.

Now, all that remains to be seen is whether the outstanding bill of 
HK$1.16 billion (US$148 million), still owed to Hong Kong by the United 
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for building and 
operating the refugee camps, is ever going to be paid. The debt has been 
outstanding for more than 10 years and previous requests by the current 
and the previous colonial administration in Hong Kong for the money to 
be paid have been ignored. 

The chances of getting this bill paid are slim. In fact they’re almost 
non-existent. It is widely perceived by those that fund the UNHCR that 
Hong Kong is rich enough to be left to pick up the tab, and small enough 
that its demands for payment can be disregarded. Besides, the UNHCR has 
enough problems of its own collecting money owed to it by donor 
countries and the focus long ago switched away from Vietnamese refugees 
to newer problems elsewhere.

Pragmatists in Hong Kong now say it should wipe out the debt by donating 
it to the UNHCR. 

It is probably a good idea. Hong Kong received a lot of flak, much of it 
unfair, for its treatment of the refugees over the years, and some 
positive international recognition for an unselfish act like this would 
let the government end the sorry saga on a high note. 

But wiping out the UNHCR debt would also set a worrying precedent: other 
countries that find themselves in similar positions in the future will 
think twice about the financial commitment of dealing with refugees 
after seeing how the UNHCR first uses moral bullying to make them deal 
with the problem in a way it dictates and then refuses to pay its bills.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Still in Hong Kong, and still on the general subject of dealing with 
those who turn up on its doorstep looking for entry, please spare a 
compassionate thought for those po-faced and distinctly unfriendly 
individuals that are the first to greet people as they step into the SAR 
– the frontline immigration officers. 

They have had an image problem for decades and are well known for their 
rudeness, particularly towards the army of Filipina domestics now 
numbering over 120,000 that pass through at least once a year on their 
way to/from their home provinces. In fact, they are not particularly 
well-disposed towards any Asian female traveling alone, and unless she 
is an obvious business executive she is likely to be questioned quite 
closely on her possible links to the vice trade.

Of course, the Immigration Department denies these charges. And other 
than the occasional to-and-fro of Letters to the Editor in the 
English-language press and official Immigration reassurances in 
response, the problem has been largely ignored. Expatriate businessmen 
and well-heeled tourists are processed disdainfully but efficiently, and 
the local population is so inured to being treated like dirt when 
queuing for any ‘service’ in Hong Kong that it’s all seen as par for the 
course.

But now immigration officers say they are being unfairly treated 
themselves, thanks to two recent high-profile cases of wrongful 
detention involving Chinese travelers.

Representatives from the Immigration Service Officers Association and 
the Immigration Assistants Union met Director of Immigration Ambrose Lee 
to discuss the public outcry, especially over the wrongful jailing of 
United States resident Lin Qiaoying. 

As you know, Ms Lin, 17, was arrested at Chek Lap Kok airport with what 
officials said was a forged passport and freed two weeks ago after 
serving two months of a four-month sentence. Her Chinese passport was 
genuine.

The second foul-up, which came to light as Ms Lin was being freed, 
involved a Taiwanese businessman who was trying to rush home to be with 
his dying wife but was detained until after she died. 

The two unions said the widespread coverage of the Lin case had led to 
complaints from front-line immigration staff who claim they had suffered 
emotionally. 

Union officials said staff stationed at border control points have been 
taunted, with some travelers “taking up an uncooperative attitude during 
inquiries."

More than 600 complaints have been lodged against the Immigration 
Department over the past three years, 128 of which have been 
substantiated. Most complaints related to poor staff manners.
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