Hanoi Offer Shocks O.C. Vietnamese

Orange County’s Vietnamese community leaders and congressional delegation expressed shock and suspicion Thursday about a reported offer by the government of Vietnam to accept the forced return of thousands of refugees who have fled to Hong Kong.

According to a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, the decision will allow Vietnamese refugees to be sent home by force if they are determined to have fled their homeland for economic reasons rather than out of fear of persecution.

“When I heard that I was in shock,” said Mai Cong, president of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc. “How could they do that? They bypassed all other world opinions. . . . They must have struck a deal. It must suit their purposes, whatever it is.”

Until now, Vietnam has opposed mandatory repatriation of the refugees, many of whom risked their lives using rickety boats to cross the open sea, partly because the nation lacks funds and other resources to resettle them.

But after discussions in the past two weeks between Hanoi and Great Britain, which has sought to stem the flow of refugees to Hong Kong, it was reported Wednesday that Hanoi offered a change in policy. The decision aroused suspicion throughout Orange County, home to the United States’ largest Vietnamese population.

“You have to remember that there is still a vicious dictatorship in Vietnam that is holding political prisoners,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach). “To return any refugees that have left that country because of political persecution is to condemn them to prison sentences or worse.”

More than 100,000 Vietnamese are living in refugee camps in Southeast Asia. More than half are in Hong Kong, with the rest in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Orange County Vietnamese leaders fear that it will only be a matter of time before the other nations will seek agreements with Vietnam to accept forcibly repatriated refugees.

But a press attache for the Vietnamese mission to the United Nations insisted Thursday that there is no such agreement with Great Britain, Hong Kong or any other nation.

“We still do not accept forced repatriation,” said the spokesman, Le Dung. “Who can make people return if they don’t want to?”

Hanoi is only asking that refugees be “encouraged” to volunteer to repatriate and saying that those who do not volunteer should be placed on a waiting list to go home, Dung said.

Asked why refugees who do not want to return should be placed on a waiting list, Dung said it “does not mean they will be forced to go” and is meant only as a method to return them in an orderly fashion.

“It’s only a concept right now. How it will be carried out is another matter,” Dung said.

Hung Le, chairman of the Vietnamese American Republican Heritage Assn., said the concept “looks fishy.” He and other local Vietnamese leaders said they fear that the move is an effort by Hanoi to exploit a program under which repatriated refugees are given living allowances by the United Nations.

Since 1989, more than 6,000 people have returned to Vietnam under a voluntary repatriation program and have received allowances from the United Nations, which also monitored their return to make sure that they were not persecuted. Vietnamese leaders in Orange County said they believe that any forcibly repatriated persons will be coerced into giving their allowances to the Hanoi government, which is mired in economic problems.

“You have to be careful in dealing with the Viet Cong,” Le said. “They say economic reasons, but economic reasons for who? First they’re desperate to get more aid because Vietnam’s economy is poor. I think they’re using people who are forced to return as bait to get more money.”

Vietnamese leaders also fear that refugees, in addition to being squeezed for money, will face harsh punishment. Job discrimination and imprisonment, which awaited people who were caught trying to escape, will lie at the end of the trip home for refugees forced to come back, said Tuong Duy Nguyen, executive director for the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc.

“This is a big blow for the refugees,” said Nguyen, who stayed a year at a camp in Indonesia after fleeing Vietnam by boat in 1983. “If (the United Nations) says that a refugee is any person who left their homelands because they fear persecution of religion or political opinion--and most of these people left because of political reasons--and they get sent back and the United Nations lets this happen, then you might as well have killed them.”

Orange County congressmen also reacted with outrage to the apparent change in policy. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) described suggestions of forced repatriation as “obnoxious.”

“It’s excruciatingly difficult for refugees,” Cox said. “We have to turn (Great Britain) around on this.”

Rohrabacher said U.S. compliance with the Vietnamese government’s decision would be an act of “collusion with jailers.” He added that he is working to find locations outside of Hong Kong that would accept refugees and take the pressure off Southeast Asian nations where large numbers of boat people have settled.

“The British are under the gun in Hong Kong,” Rohrabacher said. “They have limited resources, and they don’t want to encourage any more refugees to come there.”

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) sent letters to President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III urging the Administration to strengthen its opposition to forced repatriation.

“It is a pity that free people would turn their backs on those fleeing oppression,” said Dornan in letters co-signed by other members of Congress. “If Hong Kong is free to pursue its forced repatriation policy, other countries in the region may be tempted to do likewise. And it bothers us that the British, who have been staunch defenders of human rights around the globe, have in this case so cavalierly disregarded the gross human-rights violations in Vietnam.

“If circumstances take a turn for the worse when communist China takes control of Hong Kong in 1997, countless Hong Kong residents may find themselves in the same boat, so to speak, as the freedom-loving Vietnamese refugees. Let’s hope the world would be more merciful,” Dornan’s letter stated.