n851  0548  11 Nov 77
 
BC-Refugees 11-11
Editors:
The following is from the London Telegraph Foreign Service.
It is for use only in the United States and Canada.
 
By IAN WARD
London Telegraph
    LAEM SING REFUGEE CAMP -Nearly 1,200 refugees in this
overcrowded coastal camp in eastern Thailand are living
in fear of being forcibly pushed out to sea in the frail
fishing craft in which they originally escaped from Vietnam.
    Anxiety has been growing since late last month when
government authorities at Songkhla camp in southern
Thailand first began refusing landing rights to Vietnamese
''boat people.''
    Several boatloads of Vietnamese which anchored at
Songkhla were ordered back to sea again after being
provided food, fuel and other supplies by the Thais.
    Some of these already have sailed as far as Indonesia,
having been rejected in Malaysia and Singapore.
    Here at Laem Sing, all arrivals since Sept. 14 have been
refused any form of registration and are terrified that
the Thai government will make good its threat to order
them back to sea.
    Despite the tough words of the new Thai Revolutionary
party, which came to power in a bloodless coup last
month, there is no sign that the local authorities actually
are preparing to take any direct action against the
refugee population.
    Indeed, three boatloads of Vietnamese have arrived here in
the last 10 days, swelling the camp numbers by another 107
to a total population of 1,182. While none of these new
arrivals has been formally registered by the camp authorities,
all of them have been allowed to land and are taking shelter
in the makeshift bamboo and tarpaulin huts of the
lower-resident refugees.
    Still the government maintains that it intends halting
the inflow of Indochina refugees and the governor of
Chanthaburi province in which Laem Sing is located indicated
yesterday that a cut-off date was to be established.
    From Nov. 15 onwards, he said, a clear delineation would be
drawn between genuine refugees whose repatriation home
would mean certain death, and those who left for less
pressing reasons and who should more correctly be categorized
as illegal immigrants.
    The governor said those judged illegal immigrants would be
transferred to temporary holding areas and eventually
handed back to Vietnam after government-to-government contact.
    It remained unclear whether the new poilicy of repatriating
refugees applies to Cambodians and Laotians as well.
Observers recall that late in 1975 the Thais attempted to
repatriate 26 Cambodians across the Klong Luek border bridge
at Aranyaprathet. All 26 were gunned down by the Khmer
Rouge a few hundred yards from the bridge.
    It is difficult to determine at this stage just how much
real substance there is to the current Thai threats or
whether they constitute more a political maneuver geared
to jolting apathetic Western nations into action on the
Indochina refugee problem.
    Suddenly the Thais have chosen the Vietnamese - the minority
ethnic grouping within the general refugee population - for
the crackdown. But significantly there are at present fewer
than 1,000 refugees living in either Songkhla or Laem
Sing who have yet to be accepted by a third country.
The majority are merely awaiting processing formalities
for their entry visas.
    In contrast to the 2,300 Vietnamese ''boat people'' there
are 12,000 Cambodians and 74,000 Laotians in the 15 refugee
centers around Thailand. It would appear that the Vietnamese
''boat people'' are the easiest to pressure because of their
ready access to the escape vessels. Moreover their
predicament constitutes a convenient vehicle with which to
arouse sympathy within the international community.
    Although the tough line adopted by the Thai government at
this stage has tended to attract most attention from the
world at large, the truly horrifying aspect of the Indochina
refugee dilemma is that merchant ships are now sailing by
sinking refugee vessels, ignoring pleas for assistance. And
their masters are comforted by the knowledge that they are
obeying company regulations.
    According to refugee officials, the sea captains are
ignoring all the traditional codes of ethics for seafarers.
    Britain has been asked to guarantee that Indochina
refugees rescued by British-registered vessels will be
given free entry into the United Kingdom. But according to
United Nations officials, the British government has so
far shown indifference to the appeal.
    One refugee official yesterday told me of a Norwegian sea
captain who pulled alongside a foundering fishing vessel in
the South China Sea  a few weeks ago and found it packed
with 70 Vietnamese refugees.
    Said the captain: ''When we shone our torches down on
them it looked like an overcorwded cocktail party - except
they were up to their thighs in water.''
rr    (Endit Ward) 11-11
 
 
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