bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

Is the Special Administrative Region Government going to hire some debt-collection companies to send some muscular tattooed men, chewing a straw in their mouths, to spray red paint at the door of the United Nations?'  This suggestion from Executive Councillor Henry Tang Ying-yen, made when he was a legislator, is one of the more extreme propositions on how the Hong Kong Government should recoup one of its more troublesome 'debts'.

 The 'debt' of $1 billion was the cost of feeding and housing the 200,000 Vietnamese migrants who arrived by the boatload in the 1980s and 1990s.

 Over the past month, politicians of every hue have come up with ideas on how the Government should recover the debt from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

 Last week Democratic Party legislator James To Kun-sun even suggested that China should withhold its dues to the UN to offset the 'debt'.

 But internal government documents tell a different story: that there is no 'debt' and that there never was a 'debt'.

 In addition, even if the UNHCR had never set foot in Hong Kong the territory had an international legal obligation to look after the refugees.

 Both legally and in common usage, a 'debt' implies that the debtor has an obligation to repay.

 However, the Government has known for at least seven years that the Statement of Understanding which it relies on to verify the 'debt' is not a legal contract.

 For instance, in August 1991 the Attorney General's Chambers, now the Department of Justice, wrote in internal legal advice: 'It must be understood that the Statement of Understanding is not a binding contract nor is it drafted in legal terms. It is exactly what it says it is, a 'statement of understanding'.'  Asked directly about the use of the word 'debt', a government spokesman said yesterday the preferred term was 'an advance payment by the Government on behalf of the UNHCR'.

 But in reality, government officials frequently refer to the HK$1 billion spent running the camps as a 'debt'. The Government's current fact-sheet on Vietnamese asylum-seekers, revised in March, says that HK$1.16 billion 'is still owed to Hong Kong'.

 Former secretary for security Peter Lai Hing-ling went even further. In 1995, despite the previous legal opinion, he told Legco: 'We have a contractual debt of HK$1 billion which the UNHCR have repeatedly assured us they will discharge.'  In fact, the 'debt' to Hong Kong is not even included in the UNHCR's accounts.

 While some Hong Kong politicians view it as a rich but intransigent multinational body, the UNHCR's total budget in 1998 is just US$1.1 billion (about HK$8.5 billion) - almost the same as that of the Urban Services Department.

 With this cash, it attempts to help the 22 million refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons worldwide - a budget equivalent to 30 Hong Kong cents per refugee per year.

 In fact, it is still 50 per cent short of raising this target, and it is legally unable to get into debt, causing programmes to be cut back severely.

 Unlike the UN, which has 'membership fees', the UNHCR relies entirely on voluntary contributions by governments and individuals to fund its aid work, with the administration expenses paid for by the UN.

 With its 1998 budget at nine per cent less than for 1997, it has been cutting back programmes and desperately trying to raise cash for urgent relief operations such as that in the Great Lakes region in Africa, which covers five of the world's poorest countries - including Rwanda.

 China's contribution in 1998 was just US$250,000.

 'We are always limited by our funding situation,' says spokesman Kris Janowski.

 Mr Janowski says that the UNHCR, therefore, does not pay for relief efforts in countries that do not need help.

 For instance, the Bosnian refugees in Germany have been requiring support many times greater than the UNHCR's annual budget.

 'Of course, they [the German Government] are not paid. We are simply not able to pay that kind of money,' he says.

 One popular belief is that Hong Kong accepted the refugees on condition that the UNHCR would pay the costs.

 But Professor Roda Mushkat, a University of Hong Kong legal academic who studied the issue for her book One Country, Two International Legal Personalities, says this is untrue.

 Even though the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which bans states from turning refugees away at their borders, has never been extended to Hong Kong, Professor Mushkat states that the territory was bound by 'customary international law'.

 She says this obligation would have existed even if the UNHCR had never arrived in Hong Kong and offered to help.

 'From an international legal point of view, when it [Hong Kong] offered asylum status to the asylum-seekers it implemented its international legal liability.

 'It's not something that's dependent on somebody else doing something,' she says.

 Despite this, the UNHCR did start operations in the region when the Vietnamese boats were setting sail in ever-increasing numbers.

 However, it concentrated its funding on less-developed countries. Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, for instance, had their bills paid in full.

  In Hong Kong it paid until 1988. Then it signed the Statement of Understanding now relied on as proof of the 'debt'.

 In this statement, a copy of which has been seen by the South China Morning Post, the UNHCR makes a number of strong commitments on resettlement and to provide medical facilities.

 But under funding it merely states: 'The UNHCR will continue to meet the costs of the care, maintenance and social services required by all asylum seekers . . . subject to the availability of funds for this purpose.'  The UNHCR says that as funds were not available, it could not pay, and that it is time to move on.

 Papers viewed by the Director of Audit Dominic Chan Yin-tat in 1995 showed that even in 1989, the Government knew the cash would not be forthcoming.

 For instance, in 1989 the Secretary for the Treasury told the Acting Financial Secretary that the UNHCR's financial position was 'not too promising'.

 As Mr Chan noted, if the Government acknowledged reality then it would have to go to Legco to get approval for the spending. By continuing to class the HK$1 billion as 'fully recoverable', however, this is not necessary under the Public Finance Ordinance - and the situation has continued until this January, when spending was almost zero.

 By claiming it would be reimbursed later, the Government could simply spend the cash.

  The small sums occasionally received - just $3.9 million for 1997 - are small slices of contributions for the region-wide programme on Indo-Chinese refugees known as the Comprehensive Plan of Action.

 'The Government's view remains that the UNHCR should continue to honour its commitment by reimbursing the money advanced,' said a government spokesman yesterday.

 But the UNHCR's Mr Janowski says: 'We have not been under any kind of pressure by the Hong Kong Government recently. There hasn't been any kind of development.'  Despite this, Mr To is adamant that the UNHCR should repay what government officials have repeatedly told him is a 'debt'.

 'They [government officials] are very clear that this is a debt that has to be repaid. They say that this is a debt that is owed.' 



The refugee 'debt' that never was