THE three Hong Kong soldiers who nearly lost their lives in the ill-planned climbing expedition to Mount Kinabalu last month have every right to feel mightily aggrieved. They are being made to look the scapegoats for those who should know better. Lastweek, the two British members of the five-man expedition that was lost for three weeks on one of the most treacherous mountains in Asia, portrayed their Hong Kong colleagues in a contemptible and humiliating manner. Lance-Corporal Kevin Cheung Yiu-keung, and privates Victor Lam Wai-ki and Chow Wai-keung were said to be a ''tremendous liability'' and acting almost like children'' during the expedition that went so terribly wrong. If the three are angry, it is because shortly after their rescue, expedition leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Neill described their behaviour as exemplary. What happened to alter the account? Perhaps in his zeal to sell his version to a British tabloid for a reported $300,000, the other British officer on the team, Major Ron Foster, felt scapegoats were needed to explain away the climbing fiasco. The three Hong Kong team members now plan to release their own version of events. Unlike their British counterparts, they have the decency and common courtesy to wait until the military inquiry into the idiotic venture is over before making it public.
