April 28, 2000
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Anti-smuggling pitch falls on deaf ears
Caplan's talk about snakeheads ignored in China
By Martin Regg Cohn Toronto Star Asia Bureau
CHANGLE, China - Here in
Fujian Province, where wanderlust is a family tradition, telling
people to stay home is a hard sell.
Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan came face to face with that
reality yesterday when she met local journalists for a beachfront
photo op to drive home the message that human smuggling is a dead
end.
Only two Chinese journalists turned up to hear
her warnings of Canada's crackdown on illegal immigration. And one
seemed more interested in making his way to Canada than publicizing
her warning about the futility - and peril - of illegal sea voyages
to British Columbia.
Why, the reporter wanted to know, had his own visa application
been turned down by an immigration officer when he applied to visit
Canada in 1997? Didn't Canada need more journalists?
For Caplan, the encounter underscored the obstacles facing her
``awareness campaign'' in a region where so many people are
preoccupied with getting out. A similar scene played out the week
before, when Canadian immigration officials invited members of the
Chinese media to the Beijing embassy for an advance briefing on
Caplan's visit.
Caplan pleaded with Fujianese not to be duped by snakeheads who
extort huge sums to smuggle people to North America.
``I hope you'll help me get that message out,'' a frustrated
Caplan implored one local reporter. ``We need to warn your young
people of the dangers.''
`I hope you'll help me
get that message out. We need to warn your young people of the
dangers.' |
- Immigration Minister Elinor
Caplan, to reporter in Fujian
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After a week of meeting Chinese officials and courting the local
press, Caplan acknowledged yesterday that making herself heard is
the hard part.
``To be honest, there hasn't been as much attention as we had
hoped there would be,'' she said later to Canadian reporters
covering her delegation.
In this bustling town near the main airport in Fuzhou, capital of
Fujian province, Caplan repeated to officials Canada's plea to
repatriate what she said were 100 would-be migrants who have
exhausted claims for refugee status, out of some 600 Chinese who
arrived by boat off B.C. last year.
Ottawa is asking China to provide the documentation needed to
send them home. Canadian officials believe Beijing is dragging its
feet to press Canada into sending migrants back by the boatload -
rather than case by case as is required by Canada's refugee laws.
Sophia Leung, a Liberal backbencher from British Columbia who is
travelling with Caplan's delegation and the first woman of
Chinese-Canadian descent elected to Parliament, made an impassioned
plea in Mandarin for officials in Changle to stanch the flow of
illegals.
She described how fallout from negative coverage of the boat
people saga has hurt the interests of her fellow Chinese-Canadians.
``I gave them a pretty strong nudge,'' Leung said in an interview
later.
``We Chinese-Canadians are well-known to be honest and
hard-working, not criminals. I think you are aware this will have a
very, very negative impact on Chinese-Canadians' reputation,'' Leung
said she told the Fujianese officials.
``This will be bad for China.''
Speaking later in Mandarin for a local Chinese television crew,
Leung again appealed to Fujianese not to fall for the sales pitches
of unscrupulous snakeheads.
``Don't send your daughters,'' she told the TV camera. ``If you
love your children, don't let them do it.''
But Changle's first vice-mayor Li Jun Xiang repeated the official
Chinese line that illegal migrants falsely will claim to be
persecuted members of the banned Falun Dafa cult, or to be suffering
retribution for violating China's one-child policy and it's better
to sent them back ``by the boatload.''
Asked why it takes China so long to repatriate its own citizens,
he asserted authorities here cannot always be sure that Fujianese
migrants - who speak a unique local dialect - are really from the
area. ``It's sometimes hard to recognize them because Asian people
look the same,'' he said.
Another reason Caplan's campaign may be falling on deaf ears is
that for most Fujianese Canada's merely a way station or unintended
port of call en route to New York's Chinatown.
Hope for Peru's dune children |
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Parents questioning purpose of pledge | |