FIVE men at the Whitehead Vietnamese detention centre were transferred to a camp for trouble-makers yesterday after complaints were received that they had threatened the safety of people refusing to join a hunger strike. The five men had been admitted to hospital in the past two days complaining of the effects of refusing food, but when they were released yesterday they were moved to the Upper Chi Ma Wan detention centre instead of returning to their families in section one at Whitehead. A Correctional Services Department (CSD) spokesman confirmed that the men had been transferred for ''management purposes''. He said several detainees at Whitehead had complained to CSD staff that the men were the ringleaders of a group attempting to pressure people into joining a hunger strike involving fluctuating numbers of people. The mens' transfer to Upper Chi Ma Wan, which is known as a camp for troublemakers and ''hard cases'', came as camp sources claimed hundreds of children in the Vietnamese camps were being forced against their will by protesters to go without food provided by the CSD. The department yesterday appealed to Vietnamese at the High Island and Whitehead detention centres to allow children and expectant mothers to opt out of the action by asylum seekers who are refusing to eat the three meals a day. Senior officers in the CSD said they had evidence that children at High Island were going without because of orders from their parents and leaders of the hunger strike action. ''It seems there is a united front at High Island that is preventing the children from eating as well,'' one senior officer said. ''We have food readily available for all the children under 16 and the pregnant women, but we are not going to cook it for protesters if it is going to be wasted.'' About 700 children aged under 16 are in the two camps and most have been drawn into the protest action against the Government's repatriation policies. A CSD spokesman said all those refusing official food had their own supplies to sustain them. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees chief of mission Jahanshah Assadi will meet Vietnamese representatives at Whitehead today and will visit Tai A Chai on Monday. A senior Security Branch official will meet Tai A Chau detainees today.
