Word: hong
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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They had reached safe harbor on a sail and a prayer. In the past 21 months alone, more than 40,000 Vietnamese boat people pitched their way across the South China Sea to Hong Kong, mostly in rickety, open vessels. Last week 51 of them -- eight men, 17 women and 26 children -- learned they had risked their lives for nothing. Awakened at 3 a.m. at the Phoenix House refugee detention center in Kowloon, they were asked to gather their belongings, then herded into trucks by government personnel, some equipped with batons and shields. From there they were taken...
...Everyone was calm and went quietly," announced a Hong Kong government spokesman. But within 48 hours, more than 6,000 Vietnamese boat people expressed their outrage in protests at three Hong Kong detention centers...
Meanwhile the overcrowded camps in Hong Kong threaten to erupt in violence and disease. The refugees' presence is deeply resented, since many of Hong Kong's 5.7 million people have close relatives who have been denied sanctuary and deported to China...
Though the British Foreign Office said there will be no more involuntary repatriations this year, they are certain to resume unless other nations offer an alternative. The boat people, says a senior British diplomat, "are chasing a dream that doesn't and can't exist." At least not in Hong Kong...
According to a White House official, Laurel, stranded in Hong Kong during the mutiny, had his chief of staff telephone U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Platt in Manila. Laurel's aide requested U.S. support for the Vice President's offer to broker a negotiated solution to the impasse. The deal: Aquino would be replaced by a rebel junta, presumably including Laurel himself. The U.S. declined the offer. Late last week Laurel denied he had made such a request and demanded a denial from Platt as well. The embassy replied that during the coup attempt there was no "communication" between Laurel...