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SCMP Reporter

THE children of the camps often talked about going home, but the talk was based on dreams and distant memories. The only home many of the younger ones have ever known is one of dormitory blocks, barbed wire and despair.

  As soon as they were old enough to understand, they were told that home would soon be on the beaches of California or the ski fields of Canada. In reality, home will be back in Vietnam - the children must now be told the truth.

  For the parents, who begged, borrowed or stole enough money to buy a berth on a boat leaving Vietnam, the shame runs deep when they have to explain to their children that they must now return to Vietnam.

  The task is made even harder by the fact that the adults have trouble admitting even to themselves that the only future on offer is in the very country they fled all those years ago.

  But that is the stark truth facing tens of thousands of Vietnamese boat people stranded throughout Asia. Talks in Geneva starting on February 14 will confirm their fate once and for all.

  The rapidly growing recognition of Vietnam in the international arena means that conditions in Vietnam and the prospect of jobs and a future for returnees have changed from even a few years ago.

  The United States trade embargo on Vietnam is expected to be lifted sooner rather than later and some observers have even suggested that the delay over the Geneva meeting, which was originally scheduled for early last month, could be linked with the expectation of an imminent US decision on the embargo.

  The meeting, to be attended by officials from many of the resettlement countries, will be convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It must make many tough decisions to bring a dignified end to an agreement signed in 1989 when concern for the Vietnamese boat people was at its peak.

  That agreement, called the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), formalised a system of resettlement and repatriation and followed a decision in 1988 to continue accepting asylum seekers but not to grant them automatic refugee status.

  Until the 1988 decision, the thousands of boat people who had been arriving in Hong Kong since 1975 had automatically been classed as refugees.

  The problem now facing not just Hong Kong, but the world community is that the resettlement of Vietnamese has reached saturation point.

  Countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia have reached the point where they have to say, ''no more''.

  However, for those who are left, it is important that they be treated as human beings and not the residue of yesterday's problem.

  A detainee at the High Island detention centre recently expressed concerns that his family and friends might be forgotten by the world.

  ''We have been informed that the Indochina Refugee Conference will be held in the very near future. We know that our fate depends on every participant's determination in the conference,'' he said in a letter to the South China Morning Post.

  It is perhaps this thought that delegates will have to keep in mind when they go on to talk of money matters and the massive bill owed by the UNHCR to the Hong Kong Government of more than $1 billion.

  Of course, it is through no fault of the UNHCR that the bill has been incurred. Some governments would argue that the United States should be called upon to shoulder at least some of those costs because of their initial push to keep the boat people in countries of first asylum rather than forcibly repatriating them immediately following their arrival.

  United States Government sources suggest that America might be amenable to helping out on the bill if they were asked in the ''right way''.

  This attitude comes at a time when the US is increasingly seeking to mend ties with the Vietnamese Government as it warms to removing the trade embargo.

  Similarly, the Vietnamese Government is keen to appear to be doing the right thing in taking back the thousands who fled its shores. It has agreed not to persecute returnees.

  In reality, experts on the Vietnamese situation privately say that the Vietnamese Government does not genuinely have any concerns for the people returning.

  ''The Vietnamese Government would treat these people as second-rate citizens if they thought the world wasn't watching and they didn't need foreign investment and support,'' a senior Hong Kong Government official said.

  Lawyer and Refugee Concern spokeswoman Pam Baker says her concerns extend into the future for people returning to Vietnam from the camps.

  By the end of 1994, the two major international programmes operating in Vietnam will have ceased operations.

  ''I am terrified that once the observers and the monitoring teams have gone away, the people who returned may be persecuted for leaving in the first place - I pray to God that I am wrong,'' Ms Baker said.

  However, the UNHCR chief-of-mission in Hong Kong, Jahanshah Assadi, remains confident that the Vietnamese Government will keep its word and that the CPA can be brought to an end.

  ''We are nearing the end of an era with what has been probably the longest running refugee programme in the world. It is important that we end it in a way that the people remain uppermost in our mind,'' Mr Assadi said.

  In the meantime, recent weeks have brought widespread unrest in one of Hong Kong's detention centres. Protests involving thousands of detainees at the Tai A Chau detention centre came about following the transfer of teenage orphan Ngo Van Ha who was at the time being forced to return to Vietnam despite the wishes of relatives in the United States that he join them. His case is now being reviewed.

  Detention centre insiders say that the unrest sparked by the boy's transfer was a reflection of wider concerns among the Vietnamese that they would soon be returned to Vietnam, like it or not.

  ''They are starting to realise that once America lifts the embargo, there is no way a last ditch mercy call is going to be made to them by the US Government to come live in the States,'' said one camp worker.

  ''By lifting the embargo, America will be saying in effect that Vietnam is back in the world's good books,'' he said. ''The trouble is that camp protests could become more common because these people are starting to realise they have nothing to lose by demonstrating.''   Along with these concerns, the Geneva delegates must also place a group of several hundred people at Pillar Point Refugee Centre firmly on the agenda.

  They have become the untouchables. They arrived in Hong Kong prior to June 16, 1988, and thus were granted automatic refugee status. But because of their criminal records, drug habits or other problems, no country will accept them for resettlement.

  China has all but said they won't accept this ''hard core'' group when they take over Hong Kong in 1997 and they simply don't fit the selection criteria of any resettlement countries.

  It is one of the problems that may not be so readily solved and will add to the list of potential difficulties which sometimes makes the UNHCR liable to criticism as they move people out of the detention centres.

  No one at this stage appears to have any suggestions on what to do with problem groups. Indeed the Hong Kong Government has yet to decide who will be representing the territory at the Geneva meeting.

  A Government spokesman said no agenda had yet been prepared to take to the talks. Until a few days ago the conference itself had not even been given a firm date - a sign of the uncertainty surrounding the whole issue.



The end of the rainbow