By SEAN GRIFFIN

The media in this province has
ot yet stooped to the level of at
“ast One French journal — in which
photo of Vietnamese fleeing
»S. bombs was presented as a con-
| *Mporary photo of ‘‘boat people’
la but the manipulation of the In-
y Ochinese refugees has been no less
Breed in its campaign against
letnam .’
g Typically, the press coverage of
le issue of the ‘‘boat people’ has
mitted some of the most signifi-
ant details, particularly the fact
lat the Socialist Republic of Viet-
tam Worked out an arrangement
Wo months ago with the United
Sons High Commission of
Atfugees for the orderly departure
Tefugees.
l€ important seven-point pro-
4M which made up that agree-
ie Teceived no media attention at
"time it was drawn up May 30 —
~ the UN conference scheduled
a the-end of this week in Geneva
th been similarly ignored, even
Ough it will discuss at the highest
lmational level the question of
lutheast Asian refugees.
by missing from the press
thee 0° of the refugees is the fact
oe the U.S. government in its
: Ocidal war Lae
°pped four million

tons of

Sunded two million more — and
Self created 10 million refugees.
a the Vancouver-based: daily
an id Courier joined in the cam-
D gn last week, headlining its July
- dition, ‘“‘We’re forced: to aid
; ‘tnam,’? It was subheaded
nh Our shipment breaks govern-
{ut ban”’ and related to the World
, 00d Program wheat shipments be-
Sent to Vietnam where they are
Sstined for refugees.
ith. the same sensationalism
‘at has surrounded the news repor-
__'8 Of the boat people, the article
Muoted an unnamed Ottawa official
Saying that the wheat would
c.ttly end up in the hands of the
fai nist rulers.’’ Municipal af-
8 minister Bill Vander Zalm
4, POnded, in turn, that if that were
| One” it was ‘‘scandalous.”’
ihe Course, it wasn’t the case — as
lef, Story later conceded. But it was
there for effect.
eatlies Courier story -followed an
€t article in the July 7 Van-

Tet Sun, produced by the
the jj,

‘it

© repeated throughout most of
has ucrm media — that Vietnam
ade. a racket of ‘exporting

Vietnam |

Mbs, killed 1.7 million people, .

-Post Syndicate which echoed.

refugees.’’ The story quoted a U.S.
official and an unnamed ‘‘Euro-
pean banker’’ to back up the con-
tention.

The Vietnamese Foreign ministry
had replied to Britain’s Tory
government accused Vietnam of
“exporting refugees for profit’? —
a month before, at which time it
declared: ‘‘The fact that a number
of people are seeking to leave Viet-
nam is the aftermath of a_U.S. war
of aggression...and a result of the
perfidious schemes of the. Peking

If Canada were
seriously concerned
about the refugee
problem, it

would move to
implement the
7-point program.

authorities and reactionary forces
hostile to Vietnam.

“The government of Vietnam
vehemently protests and
categorically rejects the slanderous
contentions of the British
authorities, it stated.

In fact, the SRV had indicated six
months ago its preparedness to
cooperate in finding a solution to
the problem of refugees. On
January 12, it announced that it
would allow all those who wanted

to leave, either to be reunited with

families or to earn their living
abroad, to do so. The only condi-
tion was that they leave through of-
ficial channels.

That was followed by the com-

prehensive agreement with the UN

High Commission on Refugees
signed May 30. Vietnam agreed to
facilitate refugees’ ‘‘safe and order-
ly departure’ and the High Com-
mission in return stated that it
would persuade other countries to
accept the program.

The seven points were as follows:

1) The authorized exit of those
people wishing to leave — for
reunification of families and other
humanitarian reasons — will be car-
ried out as soon as possible and to
the maximum extent. The number
of such people will depend on the
volume of exit applications from
Vietnam and the recipient country’s
ability to issue entry visas. ;

2) The selection of those people
authorized to go abroad under this

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program will, wherever possible, be
made on the basis of lists prepared
by the Vietnamese government and
the lists prepared by the recipient
countries. Those persons whose
names appear on both lists will
qualify for exit. Those whose names
appear on only one list will be the
subject of negotiation between the
UNHCR and the Vietnamese
government or the governments of
the recipient countries, as ap-
propriate.

3) UNHCR will make every ef-
fort to enlist support for this pro-
gram among potential recipient
countries.

4) The Vietnamese government
and UNHCR will each appoint per-
sonnel who will closely cooperate in
the implementation of this pro-

’ gram.

5) This personnel is authorized to
operate in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City and, as necessary, to go to
other places to promote exit opera-
tions.

6) Exit operations will be effected
at regular intervals by appropriate
means of transport. - -

7) The Vietnamese government
will, subject to relevant Vietnamese
laws, provide UNHCR and the reci-
pient countries with every facility to
implement this program.

“Not only are most Canadians
unaware ‘of this program but the
Canadian government has taken no
steps to implement it,’’ the Cana-
dian’ Aid to- Vietnam Civilians
declared in a letter this week. It was
sent out along with copies of the
seven-point agreement.

‘Even though Canada recognizes
Vietnam, it has no embassy there
and has not sent a single person to
Vietnam to screen refugee applica-
tions,’’ the letter added. P

It cited a July 12 Canadian Press

story — carried in the Vancouver

Sun — which quoted federal im-
Migration officials as stating
«¢__.Canada has had no officials yet
in Vietnam screening applicants.”’
‘If Canada were seriously con-
cerned with the suffering of
refugees,’’ the CAVC letter charg-
ed,

gram by sending officials to Viet-
nam to process refugees.”

The letter called on the federal
government to implement the pro-
gram and to press other countries to
do likewise at the international con-
ference scheduled for July 20 and
21 in Geneva. : :

That conference, although an-
nounced some days ago, has receiv-
ed scant attention, underlining the
fact that the media is concerned.

more with making propaganda than —

with assisting in a solution to the
refugee problem.

UN secretary-general Kurt

Waldheim emphasized that the con- —

ference will discuss, only
humanitarian aspects of the refugee
program, repudiating earlier at-
tempts by the U.S., Britain and
China to turn the conference into a
forum directed against Vietnam.

Ha Van Lau, Vietnam’s am-
bassador to the UN, said that the
conference terms were acceptable
and added, ‘‘We want to solve the
refugee problem. Our policy is that
anyone who wants to leave Vietnam
may go, but we want the process to
be safe and orderly.”

Ironically, Vietnam itself still
provides shelter for the largest
number of refugees — mainly from
Thailand and Kampuchea — which
the UN estimates number some
800,000.?

‘But other forces would like to see
the refugee problem continue —
and thousands of illegal refugees,

the majority of them ethnic .

Chinese, join the exodus of ‘‘boat
people.” :

“Jt was not by chance that the

U.S. war of aggression was called
the ‘refugee war.’ This creation of

refugees is still going on with Hong

Media obscures issue of refugees

__VIET-NAM

Une Ee
falsification (>) qf) WE

cahenig: navn @

Cette photo ilustre un article inti-

tule « Liberte et communisme »,
paru dans la luxueuse revue ¢ culturelle
et de liaison des Viétnamiens. d'outre-
mer» «Qué Me» (que Ton peut tra-
duire par « Pays natal»), imprimée en
viétnamien dans la banlicue parisiennc,
trés exactement au 25 de la rue Jaffeux,
dit «l'Auberge de bambou », 4 Genne-
villiers, Hauts-de-Seine.

Le contenu de larticle, oh peut aisé-
ment l'imaginer : il est dans le droit fil
de toute la campagne occidentale lancée
contre le gouvernement de Hanoi. La
revue publie d’ailleurs en fac-similé de
nombreux articles de la presse francaise
de droite sur « les goulags vietnamiens + !

ato dang GP Ta
tewdag Ada tanh chdng Cong =
sé du LU mo whe vung Ma che chug puch

Et c'est sans doute pour sensibiliser
ses lecteurs aux appels du comité « Ur
bateau pour fe Viet-nam +, dont le siege
est, Curteusement, le méme que celui dc
la revue, et auxquels ‘elle fait largement
écho, qu'elle public cette photo censec
illustrer la condition dans laquelie le
habitants du Viet-nam sont amenes 4
fuir le regime actuel

Or il se trouve que cette photo dune
femme et de ses quatre enfants dans une
situation tragique fut prise lors des bom+
bardements’ américains au napalm sur
des zones de résistance 4 1a dictature
militaire de Saigon. en 1965, qu'elle
obtint cette méme année le Grand Prix
de lexposition World Press Photo ct fut
publiée dans te «World Press Photo
1966 ». Son auteur, fe Japonaiy Kyoiwhi
Sawada, fut lui-méme tué dans un boni-
bardement au Viét-nam cn 1970

“Une méthode qui rappelle celles utils
sées pour sa propagande déstabilisatrice
par une ceélébre agence, sans parler du
fait que la « troisi¢me force +, 3 laquelle
appartiennent ies animateurs de « lAu-
berge de bambou », fut la derniére carte
jouce par lex Américains pour tenter de
frustrer tes Viétnamiens de leur victoire,
et quill faut beaucoup d'argent pour im-
Primer une revue de cette qualité, en
vietnamien, avec un matéric! fabriqué en
Occident !...

* The above collage, which appeared in the journal Afrique-Asia ex-

posed the kind of media fabrication which has typified the coverage
of the refugee problem. The photo was published in the Vietnamese
emigre paper Que Me, published in France, and purported to be a
photo of the “boat people.” But, in fact, it was a 1966 photo of Viet-
namese fleeing U.S. terror. The photographer, Kyoichi Sawada,
died himself in a U.S. bombing raid in 1970.

Kong and Singapore as its bases, in’ and Vietnam — will be on the agen-

“it would participate in im-_
plementing the seven-point pro- -

collaboration with U.S. agents still
in Vietnam,’’ the Japanese Com-
munist- paper Akahata charged ‘in
an editorial last month.

It added, ‘“Those who are engag-
ed.in. organizing.their illegal exodus
on payment of $2,000 to $3,000 per
person are identified as overseas
Chinese in Hong Kong and
Singapore. It is well known that
U.S. and Chinese agencies are car-
rying on activities behind a screen.”
_ Inevitably, the media campaign
focussed on ‘‘the plight of the boat
people’”’ will continue. But the solu-
tion — international cooperation
based on the agreement between the
UN High Commission on Refugees

da at Geneva.

The question will be whether
Canada — and the other countries
which have voiced such great con-
cern — will act to implement it.

ee ty Oe Oh fOt- Lote oot ESE ~ eA Ae SF Som 5

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time
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a sub

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 20, 1979—Page 7