January 19, 1990

Boat People Return Justified

One of the impressive sights of Hong Kong is the huge number of “boat people” crowded chock-a-block in a corner of the harbor on all manner of flotsam that managed to survive a perilous journey from Vietnam.

These, in addition to the thousands of Chinese who sneak into the British colony each day, have put an intolerable strain on Hong Kong’s public sanitation facilities, housing and economic resources. In effect, Hong Kong has become Asia’s welfare center.

Theoretically the 57,000 Vietnamese in Hong Kong fled from political persecution. In reality, they are simply fleeing from a wretched economy, hoping to find a better life somewhere else.

Hong Kong authorities have undertaken to stop the wave of illegal aliens with a program of deportation that eventually will return 40,000 Vietnamese to their homeland.

The first batch of 51 persons, 43 of them women and children, were rousted from their bunks in a government shelter at 3 a.m. by 104 riot police. The wailing aliens were loaded onto a plane that flew them back to Vietnam.

Within hours, critics mounted a massive protest. Among them were the United States, Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

The White House called a press conference to declare, “Involuntary repatriation is unacceptable until conditions improve in Vietnam. The country of first asylum has first responsibility.”

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher lashed back at the critics. “It is perfectly in order to return illegal immigrants to their country of origin,” she told the House of Commons. “Otherwise there would be international chaos.”

In an obvious poke at the U.S., Thatcher declared, “Those countries that are protesting would do far better if they offered to take some of the boat people.” She has halted the forced repatriation until the matter is debated next week in parliament.

The problem is complicated by the planned return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. China is an ally of Vietnam and continues to supply that country’s oppressive regime with weapons to fight in Cambodia.

If the Vietnam boat people in Hong Kong are true political refugees, they can expect forced repatriation, or prison, when they are turned over to China’s not-so-tender mercies seven years hence.

Floridians can appreciate the dilemma in which Hong Kong finds itself. Two waves of Cubans and an endless succession of Haitian boat people have strained Miami’s economy - with little help from Washington.

The U.S. Coast Guard now turns back Haitians intercepted at sea, and the Immigration Service deports those who struggle ashore.

Our southwestern states are inundated with illegal Mexicans and other South Americans who are deported when caught.

Under these circumstances, the U.S. has no moral grounds on which to criticize Britain. Though one sympathizes with Third World peoples yearning for a better life - and risking life to try and find it - invading another country and depending upon its mercy is simply spreading misery.

To change economic and political conditions, pressure must be applied to those leaders creating the problem, not to a compassionate neighbor with social problems of its own.

And the U.S. has no moral right to criticize others for policies it practices.

THE PASSING PARADE

One of America’s great patriots died at Pompano Beach last week. He was Dr. George Clark Foster, a U.S. Navy dentist in World War II. Foster got into trouble when he was ordered to repair Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo’s false teeth during the latter’s 1947 war crimes trial.

Foster did the job, but tattooed in Morse code the words “Remember Pearl Harbor” on the dentures. Despite the uproar when the private censure was discovered, Tojo wore the engraved dentures until his execution in 1948.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist