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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 29, 1978)
y >•’'she said, lte of'mis. aiise more tedtooflta 1,6 numbers , ne women a said. y allowed «e and that ^cognized and men rights and 1,0 spread 'f through. he said, imily units mons — a — and his he impor- 1 v * e for other ■’hether to ; relation- ic of such so was on with the he speech n’oveinher AT THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES MIDNIGHT MADNESS WED., ALL THE PANCAKES YOU CAN EAT!!! 4 49 Just And while you’re stowing ’em away. . . Meet the new owner, Mike. International House of Pancakes® 103 N. College Ave. College Station Inta-natlunal ...for many good reasons nal House of Pancake-' I IB Ur) THE BATTALION Page 7 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1978 Flight worth it, boat people say United Press International HONG KONG — If anyone is vulnerable it is Huynh Van Hau, who never expected to travel farther from his farm home than the three- mile distance to the Buddhist center of study in the old Vietnamese impe rial capital of Hue. Yet here he is in Hong Kong, look- Ship assists Viet refugees on high seas fir buil mHonal ston Natun rabia are< ating natun r the Penia ief execra ert Hem d to Sau at he he reforestait'j plant to I mpany jf'?/' 's’aturall ith Korei cation. propane a ree uld beusi )lant is robably talt tart thepla" 1 omplete. f MSC V Cafeteria V Now Better Than Ever. You Will Be Pleased With These Carefully Prepared and Taste Tempting Foods. Each Daily Special Only $1.69 Plus Tax. “Open Daily” Dining: 11 A.M. to 1:30P.M. —4:00 P.M. to7:00 P.M. 1 •• MONDAY EVENING SPECIAL Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy Whipped Potatoes Your Choice of One Vegetable Roll or Corn Bread and Butter Coffee or Tea TUESDAY EVENING SPECIAL Mexican Fiesta Dinner Two Cheese and Onion Enchiladas w/chili Mexican Rice Patio Style Pinto Beans Tostadas Coffee or Tea One Corn Bread and Butter WEDNESDAY EVENING SPECIAL Chicken Fried Steak w/cream Gravy | Whipped Potatoes and Choice of one other Vegetable Roll or Corn Bread and Butter Coffee or Tea THURSDAY EVENING SPECIAL Italian Candle Light Spaghetti Dinner « tWlSl )5) SERVED WITH SPICED MEAT BALES AND SAUCE ‘ Parmesan Cheese - Tossed Green Salad • - Choice of Salad Dressing - Hot Garlic Bread Tea or Coffee . FRIDAY EVENING SPECIAL BREADED FISH FILET w/TARTAR SAUCE Cole Slaw Hush Puppies Choice of one vegetable Roll or Corn Bread & Butter , Tea or Coffee SATURDAY NOON and EVENING SPECIAL Chicken & Dumplings Tossed Salad Choice of one vegetable Roll or Corn Bread & Butter Tea or Coffee SUNDAY SPECIAL NOON and EVENING ROAST TURKEY DINNER Served with Cranberry Sauce Cornbread Dressing Roll or Corn Bread - Butter - Coffee or Tea Giblet Gravy And your choice of any One vegetable United Press International SINGAPORE — A 380-ton ship registered in Thailand cruises the South China Sea looking for Vietnamese refugees to assist them in reaching friendly shores. The ship, Cal Loader, is operated by World Vision International, (WVI) an organization with a $48 million annual budget which as sists victims of war, floods, ear thquakes and other disasters. Last May, it launched Operation Seasweep off the coast of southern Vietnam in international waters. Eight WVI officials were aboard the ship, including a doctor and two nurses. “Our main functions are to provide medical attention, food, water, fuel and repairs to the engine of the boat if necessary and to help them live another day so they can get to safety,” said WVI official Milton Kohut of Los Angeles, Calif. During Kohut’s tenure aboard the Cal Loader, he had five encounters with Vietnamese refugee boats. The first one, he said, had 55 ref ugees aboard. The Cal Loader re paired the boat’s engine and the ref ugees continued on their journey. Two days later, the WVI ship came across 21 refugees on a sinking boat. They were taken to Bangkok, Thailand, and 12 were later pro cessed for entry to the United States, while the other nine were granted admission to France, Kohut said. On another occasion, the Cal Loader found 64’ people jammed aboard a 40-foot boat. “They did not have a compass or a map and were lost when we found them. We treated 20 of the refugees who were ill, mostly from dehydra tion. We provided them with a com pass, map, food and water and sent them on their way when the engine was fixed. WVI s Singapore office purchased a vessel for $3,000 and it rendez voused with the Cal Loader 20 miles off the coast of Malaysia. He said the Vietnamese transferred to the ship and “left on their own” in early Oc tober. The Seasweep operation has since been suspended because of the monsoon season but will resume in March, Kohut said. According to WVI officials in Sin gapore, about half of the refugees fleeing Vietnam have drowned or died in the escape journey. Kohut said WVI based the calcula tion on what volunteers had seen and heard from the refugees. He also said that virtually all were fleeing in fish ing boats which were not fit for high seas navigation. Kohut said he rated the chances of survival for those not picked up by passing boats as about 50-50. 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LOUPOT’S BOOKSTORE WE WANT ALL ENGINEERING AND BUSINESS TEXT BOOKS ing barely half his 24 years and cring ing in his faded plumcolored monk robes following a 1,000-mile adven ture on heaving seas that included two stops in China. “They treated us well enough — in fact they were kind and generous,” Hau said in recalling Chinese treat ment when his refugee boat had to put in twice for repairs on the island of Hainan, halfway across the South China Sea from Hue. “But they told me — told us -— to take guns and go back and overthrow the Vietnamese government in Hanoi.” THE CHINESE REPAIRED the reluctant motor propelling Hau and his 73 shipmates, then set them off to sea with food, water and enough fuel to get them safely to Hong Kong waters — minus the guns. Hau s tale is not the normal story of the estimated 40,000 Vietnamese “boat people who have been tossed up on the shores of the western Pacific all the way from Thailand to Australia. But it’s a recounting far from unique. And if he had it to do all over again, would Buddhist monk Hau abandon his mother, bribe authorities, steal a boat, sneak past sentries who would happily fill his body full of lead if caught and then set out on an un known sea famous for its treachery? HAU’S ANSWER IS the same as that of Wong Thai, a Vietnamese- Chinese businessman from Qui Nhon, a coastal city 240 miles south of Hue. “It was worth risking death to es cape,” said the middleaged former businessman. “If I were given the choice of execution or returning to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, I would ask to be executed. Wong fled Vietnam aboard a boat with 171 other ethnic Chinese. “My Vietnamese friends who were in business took the same road as I did. They had to close their shops.” He shrugged. “It’s the communist way. WHETHER THEY HAVE learned the lesson from risking prison by surreptitiously listening to the Voice of America (VOA) or British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) broadcasts, the “boat people” all tell dubious authorities when they step on the non-communist shores of Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macao or Australia: “We are fleeing communism. We cannot live under communism. Our lives would be in danger. Those are the magic words, whether they know it or not, that are the open sesame to temporary asylum until they are granted per manent refuge in the United States, Canada, Australia, or France. One of the refugees on the nearby Portugese enclave of Macao claims that at least to his sensitive office in Ho Chi Minh City, it was a matter of economics what happened to people in the former South Vietnamese cap ital known previously as Saigon. LE TRONG WORKED in the dreaded Central Office of Registry for New Economic Zones, known af fectionately among the refugees as the “concentration camp farms.” Trong decided who went and who stayed in the city. “If they had enough money to bribe me or other officials who had influence with me, I put them on the list of ‘needed personnel’ (exempt from breaking new earth in virgin land) — they could stay in the city.” If he had earned all that money (he never said how much) in bribes, why did Trong leave? “The new cadres were not only Northerners, he said. “They were communists and neither one will leave us southerners alone. Trong’s reaction is typical of a Vietnamese clannishness that is exacerbated when Vietnamese from different regions or different reli gions are cast together in the seaside camps in Thailand, or the cramped hotel rooms where many of them are housed in Hong Kong. Refugee flow increases Resettlement quotas raised United Press International BANGKOK, Thailand — Refugee resettlement programs in Thailand are finally working more smoothly, quotas have been raised and local resettlement is being planned. Meanwhile, over 20,000 refugees have landed in Australia in the past three years, and officials there say most have been given resident status. The problem in Thailand, how ever, remains that more Indochinese refugees are coming into Bangkok than going out. A representative of the United Na tions High Commissioner of Ref ugees said the number of refugees registered in Thai camps reached 116,534 by the end of September, up more than 1,000 over the previous month. THE UNHCR OFFICIAL called it “one of our better months. He said about 2,000 refugees left for re settlement in ihird countries, but more than 3,100 new refugees were registered. A brutal regime in communist Cambodia and uncompromising socialist transformation in Vietnam have added to the flow. But most of Thailand’s refugees come from tiny neighboring Laos. More than 98,000 Laotian ref ugees are living in Thai refugee camps and thousands more are be lieved to be living illegally outside the camps in the Thai countryside. WITH A DROUGHT last year and widespread floods this year add ing to serious food shortages, the flow of refugees has steadily in creased. Refugee resettlement programs at the French, Australian and United States embassies have ironed out some of the bureaucratic hugs that have plagued them over the past three years. Movement abroad, especially for Vietnamese boat people, is fairly quick. Many of the 15,011 Cambodians registered in the camps have stuck there for over three years, hoping for speedier action once a proposed U.S. quota of 7,000 Cambodians per year is approved by President Car ter. Canada recently announced a new program aimed at the neglected Cambodians, but it is limited to 20 families per month. SOME WESTERN COUN TRIES and the UNHCR have been urging Thailand to permanently re settle some of the refugees in Thai land. But the Thai government, with a large, land-poor population of na tive Thais in the couhtryside, is wary of the political consequences of aid ing and resettling Laotians, Camho- diahs and Vietnamese while its own people go unhelped. At first the refugee problem was somewhat embarrassing to the Aus tralian government because some of the vessels got within a few miles of Darwin harbor before being de tected. Since then, however, their route has become almost standardized. The refugees are almost invariably accepted and given temporary entry status pending checks on their back grounds. ALTHOUGH ABOUT 8,000 are still in government-operated hostels in various cities, others have made their own homes in both urban and country areas and have been assimi lated into the community. Most have been given resident status in Austra lia. Immigration Minister Michael Mackellar said many Australians feel the boat people should he turned away. “But what would happen to Australia s good name if we did turn hack one of these boats and it sank? And what would we be condemning refugees to when we send them back to the places from which they fled?” Too much turkey? Get ready for Christmas with RAPID REDUCE TM Lose up to 10 POUNDS and 10 INCHES in 10 DAYS! Satisfaction guaranteed! 693-7431 30 MIH UTE FREBumm 846-7785 ————