§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr Mather.]
1.15 am§ Mr. Keith Best (Ynys Môn)During the past few days, most of us have participated in celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of VE day. Less well publicised is the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which happened only two years after American troops pulled out. The effect of that is with us today. The withdrawal from Vietnam tilted American foreign policy off balance and seriously undermined the self-confidence of the most powerful nation in the world, in addition to bringing tragedy to the families of the dead and injured American conscripts, the average age of whom, as the current best-selling pop record tells us, was 19.
The shadow of Vietnam hangs like a pall over the United States' intervention in other countries and colours moral judgment in a comparison, however inappropriate, with Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
The misery and convulsion of south-east Asia continues and, occasionally, is brought home to people in the western world through a haunting picture such as that in The Times yesterday of a Vietnamese child with longing eyes peering through the wire fence of a closed refugee centre in Hong Kong.
Anyone who has seen the current factual film "The Killing Fields" about the excesses of the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia should realise that such things are still going on in south-east Asia today.
In Vietnam today there is a policy of tyranny and oppression towards those who had anything to do with the Saigon Government. Thousands of people are in the so-called re-education camps — a synonym for concentration camps. I spoke recently with a person who had finally escaped from one such camp after three years. His fellow escapees had been shot in the attempt. He told of a daily regime which involved working in the fields for almost 12 hours, followed by two hours intensive political indoctrination by camp leaders who were not qualified teachers. Individuals are required to learn parrot fashion everything they are taught, are tested every three weeks and are required to go over it again and again until it is well conned. The only newspaper available is the organ of the party.
About 3,000 people were in his camp alone, divided into units of 10, of whom two remain to prepare meals while the other eight go to work in the fields, still having to do the work of all 10. No communication between groups is allowed and individuals are permitted to send one censored letter and receive one food parcel every three months. Only goods for immediate consumption can be received, and nothing can be stored. The people must grow their own food, but most is taken by the Government.
The misery is unendurable for many. There are several suicides. I was told of a man who hanged himself from a low beam in the hut by holding his legs off the floor until he was past saving.
The result of such oppression has made Vietnam an international pariah, and has led to a massive exodus of her people. First the ethnic Chinese came, but now the refugees arriving in Hong Kong are 98 per cent. ethnic Vietnamese. They have come in whatever way they can to escape the tyranny of their country. It is difficult for us 297 to imagine the sense of despair which leads to such a flood of humanity and which drives people to leave home, family, possessions and familiar surroundings and to commit themselves to the uncertainty of becoming refugees. Thousands who trusted themselves to small boats perished at the hands of the cruel sea or pirates. Yet still they come.
We have a moral duty to use every way open to us to get Vietnam not only to change its internal policies towards its citizens, but to enable those who have difficulty in obtaining exit visas, many of which must be paid for dearly through corrupt officials, to leave their country under the orderly departure programme. The British Committee for Refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, of which I have the privilege to be the chairman, has obtained permission from the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea to erect on the banks of the Thames in London a telling memorial to those who perished at sea in the search for freedom. It will be a statue of a mother holding a baby emerging from the waves. We are raising funds for it now. It will be a constant reminder to us all that the price of freedom can be life itself.
In January, I visited Hong Kong and went to see refugees in Chi Ma Wan closed centre, Kai Tak transit centre and the Jubilee camp. The Hong Kong Government have coped remarkably well and with great endeavour and skill with well over 100,000 Vietnamese refugees who have arrived in a community which has a population density of 4,972 persons per sq km, which compares with 230 in the United Kingdom and 22 in the United States of America. In the last financial year, the Hong Kong Government spent about 100 million Hong Kong dollars, of which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provided about 20 million Hong Kong dollars. Many of them have been resettled in Western countries following the Geneva conference in July 1979. I am pleased that the British Government took a leading role in that conference and agreed to take a quota of 10,000. We now have about 19,000 Vietnamese refugees in the United Kingdom.
However, as at 1 December 1984 there still remained 12,258 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, although I understand that that figure has subsequently decreased. Hong Kong has already assimilated many refugees in its community, but there is now a need for further international response to help to clear this human log-jam. Mr. Paul Hartling the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is in Hong Kong and now has called on the United Kingdom to take a few hundred more Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong.
A similar plea has been made in the excellent and comprehensive report of Vietnamese refugees, produced by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. We eagerly await the Government response.
In giving evidence to the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said:
It is our responsibility to take the lead, as the Department in the Government responsible for Hong Kong, and to try to find a solution to it.He agreed thatit must be a priority in terms of our responsibilities".298 I understand the view of the Home Office that there is no positive evidence that other countries would follow suit in taking more refugees, but no country is likely to give an undertaking in advance of any proposals by Britain.There is strong evidence to suggest that such a lead would be imitated by other countries. Canada has recently announced that it will take more refugees. In any event, it is worth while our doing so. The numbers are small. We took only 88 people from Hong Kong last year. Those refugees in Hong Kong with close family relatives in the United Kingdom number no more than 434, or 112 cases, on figures given to me when I visited Hong Kong. It is because these refugees have family links with the United Kingdom that no other country will have them. If we do not take them, they will be condemned to remain in Hong Kong camps indefinitely.
What does that mean? Chi Ma Wan is a prison camp. The refugees there are "behind barbed wire", the phrase that forms the title of the policy statement issued by the British Refugee Council in December 1984. I was greatly impressed by the standards of cleanliness and hygiene, the quality and variety of the food and the excellent medical attention. I asked the resident doctor, who was English and had lived in Vietnam for a time, whether she was short of any supplies, and she said that she was not. However, the fact remains that these people cannot go outside the camp, unlike their fellow refugees, and sometimes relatives, in the open camps, who can go outside and work in the Hong Kong community. There were 2,502 in Chi Ma Wan when I was there, mainly aged 15 to 30, 73 of them under six months old. Some 90 had been born in the camp in 1984. About 100 are going on to resettlement in the United States, Canada and Australia.
Some 300 to 400 have been there since the closed camp policy was started in July 1982 to deter further refugees from coming. These tend to be the most uneducated of the single young males. They are unlikely to be accepted by any country and will have to be assisted into Hong Kong society if no other country takes them in. In Kai Tak, I was told that 60 per cent. had not been taken because they refused a previous offer of resettlement because they were ill or had a criminal record. I have never been satisfied that the closed camp policy acted as a deterrent. In any event, if it ever did, its raison d'etre has disappeared. The numbers of refugees coming to Hong Kong have dropped off, not just as a result of the closed camp policy. The numbers were dropping off before July 1982, as the British Refugee Council has pointed out.
It is true that there was a quite dramatic diminution in numbers about that time, which has continued. However, it flies in the face of common sense to suggest that those who are prepared to risk losing everything, including their lives, in escaping from tyranny, are likely to be deterred by the thought that they would be incarcerated for a time in a closed camp. Natural optimism would entitle potential refugees to think that the period in such a camp would not be too long, even if they were also to discover the facts.
In conjunction with the Select Committee on Home Affairs, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to persuade the Hong Kong Government to phase out closed camps as soon as possible and allow the inmates to work in the community. I accept that our moral position of persuasion will be weak if we do not accept the fewer than 500 refugees whom I have mentioned, and if there is not a rolling programme of acceptances over a period to assuage the fears of the Hong Kong people that 12,000 refugees, 299 speaking a different language and with a different culture, will no be integrated into Hong Kong society once they are able to work in it pending resettlement. The resettlement must be assumed.
There is one matter to do with the closed camps which the Hong Kong Government can remedy immediately. From my talks with Government officials there, I am optimistic that the Government are on the verge of a change and need just a gentle push from my hon. Friend the Minister of State. That change would be to allow refugees in closed camps to join their spouses in open ones. One woman I met in Chi Ma Wan had been there with her two children for two years unable to join her husband who was living in an open camp and working. This is inhumane. It is no good suggesting that those in open camps can give up work and join spouses in closed ones. Realistically, the concession must be the other way round.
Since May 1981, Vietnamese refugees settled here have had applied to them the same criteria as for other citizens for family reunion—that they can be joined by minors under the age of 18 and spouses but not by others, unless they are elderly dependants or there are compassionate grounds. Unaccompanied minors, for example, do not qualify to have families join them. Refugee agencies give a much broader definition of close relatives, as we did before 1981. I believe that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office does the best he can, but I urge the Government to give a broader interpretation. I should like to know whether other recipient countries adopt similar restrictive criteria.
More needs to be done, but they are matters mainly for my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, so I shall not deal with them in detail now. I believe that we now need to concentrate assistance on those areas in which Vietnamese refugees settled here have congregated following the disastrous initial dispersal policy. If it is right for other ethnic minorities, it is certainly right for this industrious and decent people, for whose character and ability to adapt I have the highest regard. I urge the Department of Health and Social Security to look carefully at the effect on insecure refugees of the board and lodging regulations and to exempt refugees if the regulations work unfairly against them. We owe a duty to all our citizens, including those from overseas who enrich our society. Many such points were raised last Thursday during an Adjournment debate by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), who has apologised to me for not being able to be here tonight.
The situation in south-east Asia has been destabilised by the occupation of, first, Laos and then Cambodia by Vietnam, which has the third or fourth largest standing army in the world. One hundred and fifty thousand Vietnamese troops are stationed in Cambodia, and after the recent offensive which pushed into Thailand the forces of the coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, a Soviet-backed communist regime's forces now lap up against the border. There are 250,000 Cambodian refugees within Thailand and I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office whether he does not think it necessary for further international action to be taken to deal with this massive problem.
The United States is deeply concerned not just about any possible further aggression against Thailand and compromise of its territorial integrity which would involve American troops once more in south-east Asia but also 300 about the refugee problem, which is insupportable for Thailand. That country has just persuaded the United States that it must have F16 fighters. All around, the countries of south-east Asia are arming. The situation is critical.
Personally I doubt whether Vietnamese adventurism would risk a major conflagration, but the danger must be met. After its considerable losses in the abortive action against the northern part of Vietnam in 1979, China is unlikely to try to force the issue militarily, although it will continue to support the coalition Government, in particular the brutal Khmer Rouge.
Cambodia is going through an agony. There is an active policy by the invaders of Vietnamisation, particularly in the schools, and an attempt to suppress Cambodian culture, as well as reported atrocities. However welcome the Vietnamese may have been in 1979 rescuing the Cambodians from the loathsome Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot, they have now become unwelcome oppressors, condemned by the United Nations and the international community. It has been said that, as long as the Khmer Rouge cast their shadow over the country, the Vietnamese are likely to remain and the people of Kampuchea will be glad of their protection. That is open to question, but the Khmer Rouge are no friends of democracy.
Of the two other members of the coalition, Son Sann is presently too weak, though perhaps the most favoured by the west. We must look to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who is the key to a resolution of the problem and who may be able to establish a genuinely neutral Cambodia. This might persuade the Vietnamese, with much pen-illa fighting ahead of them otherwise and continuing international criticism, to withdraw if they could be satisfied that Cambodia would not be a threat on their borders. Prince Sihanouk has a home in Peking and could well be acceptable to the Chinese but act as a buffer against any thoughts of extension of influence from that quarter which would be met with concern by Indonesia.
There is no easy solution, and one is still a long way off, as acknowledged by Senor Perez de Cuellar. Yet a time bomb is ticking away in south-east Asia which could threaten world peace. It is for that reason that Great Britain has a vested interest in seeking a workable solution along with other nations that wish to save a brave and deserving people from suffering.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Richard Luce)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) on raising in this Adjournment debate the subject of the crisis in south-east Asia and the refugee problem. He addressed it with the greatest thoroughness and has shown that he has not only a great interest in the problem but a very great knowledge of it. He spoke with great feeling. He is the chairman of the British Committee for Refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia of the British Refugee Council and does a great deal of very important work in that area. I am glad too that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) is present because he takes a close interest in the affairs of refugees, and of Vietnamese refugees, particularly in Hong Kong, and has been active in the Select Committee that has been 'coking into these matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn is absolutely right in drawing attention to the root cause of the whole 301 problem of Vietnamese refugees. It lies, as he said, in Hanoi. The oppressive foreign and domestic policies of the Vietnamese Government have led to economic priorities whereby disproportionate resources are devoted to maintaining the third largest army in the world. This, combined with a lamentable human rights record, has resulted in a continuing exodus of large numbers of Vietnamese — around one million since 1975. These people flee their country in search of a better life. Last year a further 25,000 fled by boat, risking dangers at sea, including piracy. I think that these figures in themselves are a massive condemnation of the policies of the Vietnam Government.
Many thousands of Vietnamese have been detained since 1975 in the so-called re-education camps of Vietnam without charge or trial. They continue to be subjected to exceptionally harsh treatment, and deprived of food and medicine. We are similarly disturbed by the continuing detention without trial or charge of intellectuals, diplomats and writers, for example, who have expressed views even marginally different from the official party line, by the discriminatory attitude of the Vietnamese Government towards Chinese and other ethnic minorities in Vietnam, and by the persecution and harassment of Catholics and Buddhists—particularly of Catholic and Buddhist priests —solely because of their faith. We and the international community must continue to try to persuade the Hanoi Government to treat their citizens in a civilised fashion and to take proper responsibility for them. We certainly make this clear whenever we can.
The United Kingdom and Hong Kong, although they have no historic links with Vietnam, have made important contributions in helping to alleviate this human tragedy. As my hon. Friend has already said, some 19,000 Vietnamese have been given new homes in this country, and over 14,000 Indo-Chinese have been resettled in Hong Kong. The 1979 conference on Indo-Chinese refugees was a United Kingdom initiative. Over 12,000 of the refugees who have been resettled in this country have come from Hong Kong. The House should be aware of our continuing international commitment to resettle family reunion and ship rescue cases. Last year alone, we took in 832 Vietnamese in these two categories. Under the orderly departure programme, the Vietnamese continue to join their families here direct from Vietnam.
If I may say a word about Cambodia, a further reason for the crisis in the region has been Vietnam's unwarranted invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978. Vietnamese troops totalling 160,000 are still there. Vietnam prides itself on having fought for its own liberation. It should respect the wish of the Cambodian people to determine their own future free from outside interference. But the Vietnamese Government have ignored repeated calls at the United Nations, in the 1981 international conference on Kampuchea and subsequent General Assembly resolutions, for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Cambodia and the holding of internationally supervised elections for a neutral, non-aligned and independent Cambodia. These principles were re-endorsed at last year's UN General Assembly by an overwhelming majority of 110 countries. Not only have these calls been ignored, but last November Vietnamese forces launched their most ferocious offensive to date on 302 the Thai-Cambodia border, causing well over 200,000 Cambodians to flee into Thailand with great human hardship.
What is the United Kingdom policy? The British Government have consistently supported these UN calls, and we have condemned the Vietnamese occupation, which is the root cause of the Cambodian refugee problem. We have also called upon the Vietnamese to put a stop to actions such as their repeated offensives and violations of Thai territory, summoning the Vietnamese ambassador to reinforce these views. We shall certainly maintain this pressure.
We play, and intend to continue to play, a full part, in conjunction with our European and other Western partners, in support of the ASEAN nations, who are rightly in the forefront. We maintain the closest contact with them on this and on other matters. Any solution in our view must be based, as ASEAN insists, on withdrawal of the Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. We shall certainly continue to keep in the closest touch with our ASEAN colleagues, as, indeed, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, has done in her recent tour.
We shall continue to support the aims of the resistance coalition whose forces confront Vietnam in Cambodia. Prince Sihanouk and Mr. Son Sann, the leader of the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, play an important role in providing a focus for Cambodians who wish to see their country independent once again. We maintain links with representatives of the Prince and Mr. Son Sann. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend had talks with Mr. Son Sann only a year ago. We have provided bilateral humanitarian aid to their two organisations after the attacks by Vietnamese troops on the Thai-Cambodian border.
United Kingdom support for the coalition does not mean support for Pol Pot. We withdrew our formal recognition of the Pol Pot regime in December 1979. Our representative at the 1982 United Nations General Assembly made it quite clear that our support for the credentials of Democratic Kampuchea did not represent a change in the Government's position in this matter, and that we had no intention of contributing to the reestablishment of the Pol Pot regime. It is surely for the people of Cambodia to decide who should represent them. In contributing to international relief on the Thai-Cambodian border we have made it clear to the agencies concerned that our aid must not go to the Khmer Rouge, and we are assured that that commitment is honoured.
I should also refer to our efforts to help Cambodian refugees, a subject of concern to my hon. Friend. Together with other western countries, we co-ordinate our policies closely to try to alleviate this problem. During the financial year 1984–85, we contributed £850,000 to international relief work on the Thai-Cambodian border, and we shall continue to maintain our contacts with the international bodies in the period ahead.
I want to say a word about the important subject of Hong Kong, which is our responsibility. The recent publication of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on refugees and asylum highlighted the problem of Vietnamese refugees, especially those in Hong Kong. That makes the debate most timely. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office said during an Adjournment debate on 9 May that the Government were considering the Select Committee's recommendations 303 very carefully, and would be giving a detailed response in due course. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to offer detailed comment on the recommendations.
I assure the House that the Government attach the utmost importance to improving the position of the Vietnamese who have settled in this country and to finding permanent solutions for the 11,200 who are still in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement.
My hon. Friend referred to the remarks of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Hartling —who is now visiting Hong Kong—to the effect that Britain should
take an initiative that would encourage other countries to take more.I said in my evidence to the sub-committee on race relations and immigration on 4 February thata clear indication that we are prepared to carry out a resettlement programme, linking it perhaps to special family reunion cases, and that we have very positive proposals and ideas in this connection, could well produce a response.I believe this to be the position, but there obviously can be no guarantee.As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said on 9 May, the Government will look at the question of the United Kingdom accepting more refugees, especially family reunion cases, in the context of their consideration of the Select Committee's recommendations. It is, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment in more detail, save to stress that the Government are treating the matter as one of very great importance and urgency.
I wish to praise the contribution already made by other countries towards helping to solve Hong Kong's refugee problem. The United States, Canada and Australia have accepted 55,000, 16,000 and 4,400 refugees respectively from Hong Kong. I am pleased to say that Canada has just announced a decision to take an additional 500 refugees this year from Hong Kong on top of the 600 that it had already agreed to take. That means that this year it will take the same number as last year.
In particular, I must thank the Hong Kong Government and people for what they have done to help the Vietnamese refugees. Since 1975 they have provided temporary asylum for more than 100,000 refugees. In addition, they have themselves absorbed more than 14,000. They have turned none away. It is a remarkable humanitarian achievement for such a small and densely crowded territory.
In regard to the difficult problem of the closed camp, as I said in my evidence to the Select Committee on 4 February, the position of having 5,600 refugees in closed camps and an equal number in open camps—but I refer particularly to the closed camps — is such that no Minister can conceivably say that it is satisfactory, desirable or acceptable. It is not. Nor is it satisfactory or desirable for the Hong Kong Government. We and the Hong Kong Government would like camps to be abolished as soon as possible. But we have to face reality. Hong Kong is one of the most crowded places in the world. The population density is 20 times that in this country. It has received more than 100,000 refugees since 1975. It has enormous immigration presssure simultaneously from 304 China. It has been difficult for the people of Hong Kong to accept that Chinese, often kith and kin, should be returned to China, while Vietnamese remain in Hong Kong pending resettlement overseas.
I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind that the evidence shows that, however painful the process of introducing those camps in 1982, it has led to an increase in the decline in the number of people arriving from Vietnam in relation to the number of people who have been going from Vietnam to other countries. The figures for the period from 1981 to 1984 demonstrate clearly that there has been a decrease in the numbers arriving in Hong Kong. In 1983 the arrivals decreased by 53 per cent. but on a regional basis by 36 per cent. In 1984 the Hong Kong arrivals decreased by 39 per cent. and the regional arrivals by 11 per cent.
Those who argue that Hong Kong's refugee burdens were already declining when closed camps were introduced should bear in mind that in July 1982, the month in which Hong Kong changed its policy, arrivals in the territory reached their highest level for three years. More than 1,600 refugees arrived in Hong Kong in a single month. I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind chat it is terribly important to take these factors into account and to consider the difficult position of the people of Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Government make every effort to meet the needs of refugees for shelter, food, medical treatrnent, clothing, education, welfare and recreational facilities. In particular, they are devoting considerable attention and resources to improving educational and training oppor-tunities. They seek to provide educational and vocational training, with emphasis on English, in all Government-run centres. In Hei Ling Chau closed centre for the North Vietnamese where the resettlement rate is therefore lowest and potential integration problems greater, the Hong Kong Government intend to provide special multi-purpose training centre, to be funded by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and run by the World Relief voluntary agency. We all hope that will help.
In particular, my hon. Friend referred to the segregation of husbands and wives. That is one of the most difficult and humane problems that one has to deal with. The problem is that if we allow people from closed camps to join their spouses in open camps there is a serious danger of abuse of the system which must be taken into account. In the meantime, there have been 50 applications for reunion in closed centres; 37 of them have been approved. I shall consider very carefully the recommendation that my hon. Friend has made.
Again, I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Our objective is to seek durable solutions to these painful problems. In looking to the future, we believe that in the long term the ideal goal is to create conditions in which refugees will want to return to their countries of origin of their own free will. They must not be denied that aspiration.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Two o' clock.