U.S. supports more screening for boat people

U.S. supports more screening for boat people

WASHINGTON (AFP): The United States will support additional screening for Vietnamese boat people who failed to qualify as refugees so long as they return first to Vietnam, a top State Department official said Tuesday.

"We would be prepared to support a proposal to provide opportunities for resettlement interviews upon return for those now in the camps who agree to return to their homes voluntarily," Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Phyllis Oakley said.

Oakley told a congressional panel that Washington is discussing such a plan with partners in the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), a 1989 UN program aimed at differentiating genuine refugees from economic migrants and returning the latter to Vietnam.

Details of such a proposal will be worked out in consultation with other governments involved, Oakley said.

She did not name the countries, but Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand have all served as first-asylum host countries to the scores of thousands of people who have fled Vietnam by boat.

No further details were immediately available from the State Department on plans for additional asylum screening.

In testimony before the House of Representatives subcommittee on international operations and human rights, Oakley defended the CPA under tough questioning from the subcommittee chairman, Representative Chris Smith.

"Thousands of people are alive today because of the CPA," she said, noting that the scheme was implemented as thousands of Vietnamese were fleeing through waters made treacherous by sharks and pirates.

Oakley acknowledged flaws in the screening process but said the interviews had generally been conducted fairly and in accordance with international standards.

Pressed about charges that the screening process has been hostile and corrupt, Oakley said most of the criticism had focused on Indonesia, where UN officials have begun an investigation.

Non-governmental organizations and international monitors "have not detected any pattern or policy of persecution" by the Vietnamese government targeting returning boat people, she said.

"The United States is firmly committed to the integrity of the CPA and to the principle that there can be no resettlement of non-refugees directly from first-asylum (countries)," she said.

Smith, a Republican who sponsored legislation that would end U.S. support for the CPA and give priority asylum screening to the 40,000 Vietnamese boat people still detained in Southeast Asia, disagreed.

"I feel we have been party to an unseemly process that has screened out genuine refugees," he said.

Smith's legislation passed the House of Representatives on May 24 by a vote of 266 to 156.

President Bill Clinton has threatened to veto the provision if it is endorsed by the Senate, where congressional aides say it has less support than in the House.

Despite its own uncertain fate, the draft legislation -- which Smith estimates would result in U.S. asylum for 20,000 Vietnamese -- has nonetheless brought the voluntary repatriation program to a virtual standstill.

Vietnamese throughout Southeast Asia have refused to sign up for the repatriation program and staged demonstrations that police have quelled with tear-gas.