By PETER HUMPHREY
Reuters News Service 5/11/1996
HONG KONG -- Rioting Vietnamese hurled rocks and spears and police fired tear gas in a Hong Kong prison camp Saturday in a second day of rioting by boat people resisting deportation.
The rioters waved banners, shouted slogans and bombarded the police from hut roofs after authorities tried to round up inmates for the latest wave of forced repatriation. Security forces said six officers were injured in the clash.
A Friday uprising and mass breakout at the Whitehead camp in the rural New Territories was one of the worst riots in Hong Kong penal institutions in years. Rioters razed 26 buildings, set ablaze 53 vehicles and burned camp inmate records.
Prisons commissioner Raymond Lai said 119 inmates escaped after toppling fences and storming the gates Friday. About 80 had been recaptured, leaving about 35 on the run.
Lai told reporters a reliable count was made Saturday and earlier estimates that 200 had escaped were exaggerated.
Police who scoured hills and nearby towns for fugitives widened the search to urban Kowloon and south to Hong Kong Island, where some escapees were eventually rounded up.
The camp's 8,600 detainees have failed to secure refugee status and are deemed illegal immigrants. China insists all 18,000 boat people detained behind barbed wire in Hong Kong be removed by the time the territory reverts to Chinese sovereignty in mid-1997.
"Vietnamese migrants showed complete disregard not only for law and order but also for life and property. Seventeen staff narrowly escaped death from a building set on fire," Lai said.
"This incident will not shake the government's resolve. These people will be going back to Vietnam. The sooner the better."
Saturday's clashes broke out as police and guards rounded up migrants for removal from the center.
The government is emptying Whitehead as it increases the pace of forced returns to Vietnam. It aims to send around 600 back in the next month and is seeking to charter widebody jets.
Hundreds more at Whitehead waved "freedom" banners and shouted from the rooftops in a tense standoff with riot police. Small children crawled dangerously over the roof ridges.
One banner said: "Fight to the end for freedom and democracy."A roof was painted with the slogan "Long live Freedom."
About 2,000 security men surrounded the huts, and riot police removed the 200 protesters before dusk fell.
Clouds of smoke mingled with acrid tear gas over the huts of the camp, located beside the sea, after Saturday's battle, which appeared to catch police and prison guards by surprise.
Children waved sadly through the steel mesh of prison service lorries as whole families of failed asylum seekers were trucked out of the camp to the more secure High Island detention center, a first step to deportation.
The riots did not dent the government's determination to proceed with deportation plans. Any shreds of sympathy Hong Kong people harbored for the boat people fizzled as they counted the cost of what officials called deplorable, wanton violence.
Newspapers and callers to radio talks shows spoke of the public's desire for the government to charter ships to deport boat people in large numbers as a result of the mayhem.
"Time to get tough," was the headline of an editorial in the English-language South China Morning Post.
Some 30,000 Vietnamese boat people are held in camps in Asia, more than half of them in Hong Kong.
By DAMIEN McELROY in Hong Kong
The last 1,400 Vietnamese boat people held in a Hong Kong detention centre will be given residency in the former British colony and the only remaining camp, Pillar Point, will be closed in May.
The decision brings to an end one of the sorriest sagas in Hong Kong's history. At one stage 60,000 boat people were interned in camps while their pleas for refugee status were being heard.
Attempts to repatriate the last of the boat people to Vietnam or to find them homes in third countries have failed. The final 1,400 will now be given the opportunity to live and work in Hong Kong.
More than a third of those affected by the ruling know no other existence, having been born behind the barbed wire fence of the Pillar Point camp since their parents arrived from Vietnam.
The first boat people arrived in Hong Kong in 1975. British authorities later declared Hong Kong a port of first call and opened holding centres for those fleeing oppression in Vietnam.
At the height of the crisis a total of 60 centres were in operation.
The Telegraph, London, March 27, 2000
I am just one of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Boat People who had endured a perilous escape across the unforgiving and cruel Gulf of Thailand on a small wooden and unseaworthy boat. Unlike thousands of other Vietnamese Boat People who vanished without a trace, lost their lives, or were victims of Thai pirates, I were fortunate to survive the perilous escape and are now settled in America - A land of true freedom and opportunities. I set up and still maintain this website on my own free time and pocket money. Part of the reasons why I set up this website was to share my experiences and thoughts as well as creating something I can reflect on the past once in awhile. The followings are briefs info about myself.
Binh D Dao, escaped in August, 1983 when I was 15 years of age. I was the only member in my family to escape with 48 others on a small wooden boat. It took us 8 days before we landed on an island in Malaysia called Pulau Bidong. This island was set up as one of the refugee camps in Malaysia. I was moved to two different refugee camps and stayed there for one year and 4 days before I was given refuge in the U.S. on August 15, 1984. I attended high school, graduated in 1988, and entered UC Davis. I graduated from Davis in 1993, and am now employed in the Silicon Valley.
Note: I am NOT a writer. My main objective is to serve as a medium for others Vietnamese Boat People to share their thoughts and experiences about their perilous escape for freedom. Thus, please pardon me for any grammatical errors or typos. If you find any errors, please don't hesitate to let me know.
December 12, 2001