II  The Tragic Journey - Refugees from North Vietnam  

The reality of the Vietnamese boat people’s journey is full of tragic experiences, endless natural calamities and brutal man-made obstacles. (Photo: B. McDougall)

            For thirty years from 1954 to 1975, beside the mass evacuation of North Vietnamese in 1954 following the Geneva Agreement, occasionally some refugees in the North were able to escape Hanoi’s rigid control and requested protection from the South Vietnamese government. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 eliminated the last free port in Indochina for North Vietnamese, who wished to flee communist persecution and seek asylum elsewhere.[1] However, as the boat people from South Vietnam successfully overcame deadly challenges to reach their destination of freedom in strange lands, people from the North redirected their escape and gradually arrived in Hong Kong and Macao.[2]

            Although the North Vietnamese escapes seemed to be easier and cost less than those of their southern counterpart,[3] most of their boats or so-called junks were neither motorized nor equipped with adequate navigational tools. In many cases, sailing was the only method of transportation for the northern asylum-seekers, besides walking into to neighboring China to find a way to Hong Kong or Macao. The North Vietnamese journeys usually took 6-8 weeks and could be characterized as ‘island-hoping’ because their floating junks often hugged the coastline of southern China before arriving in Hong Kong or Macao. At no time the floating junks lost sight of land where the asylum-seekers could stop periodically for repairs and supplies as well as to drop anchor during stormy weather. It is interesting to note that Beijing allowed the ‘island-hoping’ Asylees to disembark to re-supply frequently as long as they would eventually continue on to claim refugee protection in another state, which was often the British colony of Hong Kong.

            In 1982, the government of Hong Kong, where most North Vietnamese landed, introduced legislation to imprison all arriving boat people in ‘closed camps.’ After July 2, 1982, all asylum-seekers who disembarked on the island were directed to read a posted notice:

‘All former residents of Vietnam seeking to enter Hong Kong since 2 July 1982 are detained in special centres.

If you do not leave Hong Kong now, you will be taken to a closed centre and detained there indefinitely. You will not be permitted to leave detention during the time you remain in Hong Kong. It is extremely unlikely that any opportunity for resettlement will be forthcoming.

You are free to leave Hong Kong now, and if you choose to continue your journey, you will be given assistance to do so.’

            Hong Kong’s ‘special centres’ for the refugees were triple-decked cubicles approximating 8’x6’x3’ each and separated by wooden boards and draperies. There was no privacy, and basic facilities were severely limited. Occasionally, temporary jobs inside the camp were available at exploitative wages; a day’s work earned the refugees U.S. $0.40.

            An official of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Hong Kong observed in 1990 that:[4] ‘… many asylum-seekers arriving in Hong Kong were not fleeing persecution and hence were not refugees by the United Nations definition. Many were ethnic Vietnamese rather than ethnic Chinese. Increasingly, they were from North Vietnam and had no association with the old southern regime or the U.S. presence. They were simply economic migrants in search of a better life…  in 1988, the numbers arriving (in Hong Kong) began to raise sharply. Over 70% were from North Vietnam and over 98% were ethnic Vietnamese.’ It was incredibly absurd to predispose that North Vietnamese were bogus refugees and thus deny them asylum.[5]

            The case of Mr. Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, an Asylee from North Vietnam, easily dismissed this shallow assumption.  Despite Mr. Nguyễn's vivid and cogent accounts of communist persecution inflicted upon him, including lengthy incarcerations, for his long-held liberal view, his refugee claim was rejected for lack of credibility. Mr. Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng’s case was most convincing and persuasive, but the refugee screening process failed him because he was an ethnic Vietnamese from the North.  When Mr. Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, with the assistance of volunteer lawyers, appealed the official dismissal to Hong Kong Supreme Court in order to expose the inherent injustices and racial discrimination within Hong Kong’s refugee screening system, the local authorities quietly intervened and allowed his refugee claim because a legal defeat could cause grave public embarrassments for the government.

            Mr. Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng’s case demonstrated that compelling refugee claims could be summarily dismissed due to prejudicial and erroneous assumptions about North Vietnamese asylum-seekers. American attorney Daniel Wolf, who spent some time in Hong Kong to assist the boat people, provided the following observation which this writer partly share based on personal experience in Southeast Asia:[6]

‘There are also glaring similarities among the files of those who have been denied refugee status.  For example, if one is to believe what is recorded in the files, nearly every asylum-seeker, regardless of the strength of the persecution claim, stated that he or she left Vietnam for “a better living overseas,” and refused to return because of fear of “being punished for illegal departures.”  Moreover, when asked if they had any further points they wished to make, in nearly every case applicants are alleged to have answered “nil.”

Based on my survey of more than a hundred cases and my discussions with those working in the field, my conservative estimate is that 40 to 60 per cent Vietnamese in Hong Kong’s detention centres, including 30 to 50 per cent of northerners, have fled persecution in Vietnam and are refugees under the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.’

            The case of asylum-seekers from North Vietnam exposes racial prejudice that could occasionally tarnish human compassion and jeopardize the flight of genuine asylum-seekers. Any true attempt to distinguish between Convention refugees and economic migrants could not be based on shallow and prejudicial foundations because this would destroy any real opportunity for genuine Asylees to present their case while allows phony claimants to abuse the process and receive preferential protection simply on the basis of their racial composition.

Back to Table of Contents