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SCMP Reporter

UNITED States power brokers on Capitol Hill are notorious for number-crunching, corridor counselling, back-room manoeuvring and garnering support for various causes.

  One cause likely to create strong emotions is Vietnam and the legacy of a war the United States apparently expects the rest of the world to bankroll.

  That legacy is the boat people - tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have failed in their attempts for refugee status and resettlement in the United States.

  It is ironic that 20 years after the first boat people arrived in Hong Kong, the territory is struggling to cope with the remaining 21,000 asylum seekers because of goodwill gestures on their behalf from the United States.

  A mire of inter-governmental quicksand now engulfs the repatriation process, making headway virtually impossible.

  The next step in the drawn-out process will spring from a meeting of old foes, Vietnam and America.

  In May, Republican Congressman Chris Smith introduced an amendment to a wider piece of draft legislation which would have seen the resettlement of thousands of boat people in the United States.

  Estimates as to how many would be eligible ran as high as 20,000 - which is half the number held in Vietnamese detention centres across Asia.

  His proposal, which drew some cross-party support, caused outrage in the US administration, in London, Hong Kong and at the United Nations.

  Only two months earlier, the US and dozens of other countries, which are signatories to the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) governing the repatriation and resettlement of boat people, had ratified a formula to close the camps.

  A massive spanner was thrown in the works in the form of the Smith proposal.

  With some minor adjustments, it was voted in by the lower house of the US legislature.

  As a consequence, all forms of repatriation came to a screeching halt as boat people dug in their heels in the hope that they would have a home in America after all.

  This being so, how was Hong Kong to empty camps by the target of the middle of next year?   Eventually the legislation went to the Senate, but the draft legislation was shelved.

  In a perfect world, that would have been the end of the proposal, at least for a while.

  But it is likely to rear its head at about the same time the Primaries for the Federal election start - the last thing a struggling Democrat administration needs hanging around its neck - in just over four months.

  The Indo-Chinese population in the US largely votes Republican and a step towards support for their friends, family and countrymen still wallowing in camps could mean valuable votes for the Clinton clan.

  But there is another twist.

  Observers say Mr Smith knew full well his plan would not see the light of day.

  Whether he realised the implications of his actions in terms of destroying the CPA may be giving his grasp of the situation in Hong Kong and elsewhere too much credence.

  Political observers say he and his supporters knew the numbers game all along and were fishing for a compromise.

  Sure enough they have now got it - the mystery Track Two.

  Assistant Secretary of State Phyllis Oakley last month made the rethink official and acknowledged that the administration had given up hope of persuading boat people in Asia's camps to return home.

  It was now going to pin its hopes on a new re-screening plan to relieve a little more US war guilt.

  Under the Track Two scheme revealed by Ms Oakley, boat people would return voluntarily in exchange for another chance at being screened for refugee status by US officials in Vietnam.

  This is an interesting scenario, given the recent normalisation of relations between the two countries.

  After all, to screen someone in as a refugee is to acknowledge that they face persecution by the Vietnamese regime, a government the US is supposed to have now made friends with.

  Ms Oakley told a House of Representatives hearing that officials needed to go to Hong Kong's camps and 're-educate' migrants on returning voluntarily.

  She also accused congressmen of having helped sabotage repatriation.

  Citing the Smith proposals for direct resettlement to the US, she said: 'Hundreds who had signed up to return voluntarily to Vietnam have withdrawn applications and new registrations have virtually ended.

  'We are deeply concerned about unrealistic expectations of direct resettlement.'   Mr Smith, who is chairman of the International Operations and Human Rights sub-committee, has repeatedly defended his plans, saying the screening process was 'hopelessly flawed'.

  Ms Oakley indicated that about 10 per cent of those languishing in Asia's camps might be screened because they had spent time in re-education camps or had served alongside the US military during the war.

  Very few of Hong Kong's 21,000 boat people fall into these categories and the question that has yet to be answered is: what happens when word reaches the territory's boat people that those volunteering to go back for re-screening in Vietnam are once again being refused refugee status on a large scale?   On Ms Oakley's reckoning, only one in 10 would be eligible to board a plane for the US.

  The rest would be left to get on with their lives in Vietnam.

  'It's obvious that if news got back that very few people were being screened in, people would once again stop volunteering to go back and instead sit around and wait for whatever Track Three is,' one UN official in the region said.

  But Track Three would probably be too late.

  If the second scheme does not work, Hong Kong faces a difficult political situation.

  China has said it does not expect to inherit the 'Vietnamese problem' in 1997.

  But by the time Track Two starts, it may be too late to produce an alternative.

  And if it fails to get off the ground, the Clinton administration may have the Smith amendment to contend with as it goes into those all-important Primaries.

  Clinton's own Vietnam War record is also still a potential burden at the polls.

  So he needs to handle the legacy of the war with all the political skills he can muster.

  However, while he prolongs his juggling act, Mr Clinton is ensuring that the cost of holding Vietnamese in Hong Kong keeps clicking over at the rate of about HK$32,000 per person a year.

  As usual, the stumbling block on even starting Track Two is Vietnam and efforts are already being made to woo Hanoi into agreeing to the plan.

  It will also require the ASEAN nations and Britain, as Hong Kong's international representative, to agree.

  While this goes on, Hong Kong's security forces face more removal operations in the camps.

  Yesterday's operation at the Whitehead detention centre was relatively straightforward.

  But the days of simple operations may be numbered.



At sea over boat people