During the past few years, the desire to resolve the boat people situation in Hong Kong has resulted in the exacerbation of existing human rights violations and the development of new concerns. Among the most disturbing of these developments is the use of harsh detention conditions as an incentive in promoting repatriation. In the effort to "encourage more people to return to Vietnam, both the Hong Kong government and the UNHCR have allowed their basic protection roles to be seriously compromised.
While Human Rights Watch/Asia acknowledges the UNHCR's efforts to address systematically the protection and assistance needs of Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong, the agency has been unable, partly due to the instransigence of the Hong Kong authorities, to significantly improve these conditions of detention which do not meet the agency's own standards. Finally, UNHCR has not adequately ensured that all genuine refugees who choose to return to Vietnam do so voluntarily, and all individuals who may have been screened out have not been adequately protected against refoulement. The safety of the Vietnamese must be protected in countries of first asylum as well as back in their countries of origin. Having taken on a multifaceted role, the UNHCR seems to have often found its protection abilities compromised due to conflicting interests and priorities.(1)
The experience of the Vietnamese in Hong Kong raises important questions about the protection of asylum seekers in an age of changing political priorities. As the protection of refugees ultimately falls to individual countries, it is important to reevaluate how states should translate this responsibility into action. A significant proportion of Hong Kong's native population are refugees or descendants of refugees who fled political oppression, social turmoil or natural disasters in China and elsewhere to seek haven in the island territory. In Hong Kong, refugees and the challenge of dealing with them are certainly not unique to the Vietnamese. As a result, there is a clear need for the Hong Kong government to establish a comprehensive policy to deal with asylum seekers in a fair and systematic way. In doing this, Hong Kong must respect the individual's right to seek asylum and to have the opportunity to make an asylum claim within a reliable and unbiased system.
As the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule takes place, the future government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region must above all ensure that Hong Kong is a place where basic rights and freedoms are protected and enjoyed. These rights must be extended to even the most unpopular groups in Hong Kong society. The twenty-year history of the boat people reveals that this has not always been case under the Hong Kong and British governments. How Hong Kong will operate under Chinese sovereignty remains to be seen. In charting their course for the future, the incoming authorities would do well to learn from the Vietnamese experience and remember the adage that a society is judged not by how it deals with its strongest members but rather with its weakest.
(1) For analysis of a similarly contradictory UNHCR program, see Human Rights Watch/Asia, "Burma: The Rohingya Muslims Ending a Cycle of Exodus?" A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 8, no. 9, September 1996.