April 29, 2000
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Caplan praises Hong Kong security
Calls efforts to curb migrant smuggling `outstanding'
By Martin Regg Cohn Toronto Star Asia Bureau
HONG KONG - A day before
jetting home to Canada, Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan learned
yesterday how illegal migrants undertake a far more dangerous voyage
by sea in specially rigged containers.
Caplan toured Hong Kong's sprawling container
terminal to see how smugglers hide their human cargo inside
containers with special hatches that allow them to survive their
journey across the Pacific Ocean and escape detection.
But the inspection tour here yesterday also served as a grim
reminder that for some of the stowaways, the odyssey to North
America can be a dead end.
Three of 18 people, who were smuggled in canvas-topped containers
aboard the Japanese-owned ship Cape May, were found dead in January
when the boat docked in Seattle. Several others migrants were so
severely dehydrated they had to be hospitalized.
From last December until now, more than 180 illegal Chinese
migrants were captured along the coasts of Canada and the U.S. after
hiding in 11 vessels that set off from Hong Kong.
But Caplan came away impressed after seeing the massive dragnet
by local security forces aimed at so-called snakeheads who smuggle
clients from mainland China via this port city.
`Lots of expressions of
goodwill (from China), but now we need to see action'
| Hong Kong handles the
equivalent of 16 million 6-metre containers a year, of which about
5,500 are shipped every day to North America.
Officials briefed Caplan on high-tech x-ray machines and carbon
dioxide detectors that could reveal smuggled humans inside sealed
containers. And she watched a Springer spaniel sniff cargo heading
for Vancouver.
``I was overwhelmed when I saw the number of containers here,
it's immense,'' the immigration minister told local journalists at
the terminal. ``The efforts they're making are outstanding.''
While lavishing praise on Hong Kong authorities for their
aggressive efforts, Caplan expressed frustration with mainland China
for failing to co-operate as closely with Canada.
Canada has complained Beijing is taking too long to repatriate
some 100 illegal migrants who arrived by the boatload off British
Columbia's coast last summer.
China wants Canada to return the illegals by the boatload, rather
than granting them access to Canada's refugee determination process
on a case-by-case basis in which many claim human rights abuses.
Despite a week-long trip to the mainland before coming to Hong
Kong, Caplan did not win any concrete assurances from China to speed
up the required documentation process that would allow the migrants
to be repatriated.
``We need help from the government of China to return those young
people as soon as possible,'' she told reporters here yesterday.
``There have been lots of expressions of goodwill, but now we need
to see action.''
Beijing insists on documenting the citizenship of each returnee
in a time-consuming way, ``much of which, in my view, is
bureaucratic,'' she said sharply, adding the paperwork should take
``weeks, days - not months or years.''
Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue in Hong Kong, which has
historically attracted refugees from the Communist mainland.
But in recent decades, local authorities have made enforcement a
top priority out of fear the territory of 7 million people would be
overwhelmed if more unauthorized mainlanders slipped in.
With Hong Kong the last stop on her week-long trip through China,
Caplan and members of her delegation seemed discouraged by mainland
indifference to their campaign.
Despite their intense efforts to raise awareness, they received
little coverage in the Chinese press, and little more than pro-forma
reassurances from government officials.
Official warnings about the perils are old news for a seafaring
people who see the trip as a calculated gamble with a big payoff.
And Canada is usually little more than a way station for
Fujianese migrants who are willing to risk everything to reach their
ultimate destination, New York's Chinatown.
Ying Chan, an academic at the University of Hong Kong who has
researched emigration from Fujian, said some of the local officials
who tell Caplan they are making every effort to smash the snakehead
rings may also be privately taking bribes to look the other way.
You cannot load a boat with 200 people at night without the
authorities knowing what's going on, Chan said.
``Of course they're involved,'' Chan said.
``This is such a lucrative business. Moving people is better than
moving drugs, because the goods move themselves, and they cover up;
and the penalties are light.''
A senseless message for the common folk [Coyle] |
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