The Correspondent, April 1980

ç^ Correspondents' Club ol Hong Kong

4"o. ¿)

4e

o% 7Q

April'80

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COVER Among the increasing number of re-

cent travelers to Cambodia was Rikio lmajo, UPI photo chief in Hong Kong headquarters. lmajo took the cover photograPh in Phnom Penh.

The Officers: President:

Vicky Wakefield

First Vice President: Second Vice President:

Hugh Van Es

Tim

Rossi

The Staff: Editor: Photogropher:

Advertising: Designer:

r |,

Bert Okuley Hugh Van Es Nida Cranbourne Bessie Lee Pui-ling

ublished monthlv at an org.n of the Foräign Cor-

rerpondents' Club of Hong Kong. Office¡ at 15th Floor, Sutherland Hou¡e, 3 Chater

Road, Hong Kong, Tel:

È

-J

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237734 and 5.233003.

Cable¡: CORCLUB HONG KONG. Addre¡¡ all correspondence to: Editor. Foreign Correspondentr' Club of

Hong Kong, 1sth Floor, Sutherland House, 3 Chater Road, Hong Kong. Adver'

tiring: Nida Cranbourne, Firrt Floor, 30 lce House St., Hong Kong. Tel: 5-248482.

P¡inted by , Yee Tin Tong Printing Press, Ltd., South

China Morning Post Building 4th Floor, Tong ChongStreet,

Ouarry Bay, Hong

Tcl:

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Kong.

ANGKOR WAT: Trying to sove

PHNOM

PENH

the ruins from ruin.

Beyond

the shock of seeing so much misery,

devastation, destruction,

disease

and starvation, a return visitevokes a sense of nostalgia - a sense of mournful reminiscence of whatwas and will probably never be again.

This was my second trip to Phnom Penh since the Vietnamese took effective control nearly a year and a half ago. ln April 1979, the city I saw was still a ghost town,

much the vacant shell the Khmer Rouge meant it to be, simply an army and government headquarters and nothing more. At the start of 1980, Phnom Penh had come back

to life; Nothing like the beautiful city I knew when I first came here ten years ago, of course, but a growing city now of nearly 300 thousand, about a third its former size.

The Hotel Royale, Alias "Le

l{¡

s ù

P¡ctured

*s

at o

the situation todoy in

Cqmbodio are

Lookins on was well

is

i;::T;;trßît:,;,:rf,i;

covere

Phnom," and now "the Samakí" (Sol¡darity), has resumed irs role as the center of foreign activity.

dia,

The room was the same, but the mirrors had been stolen. Mirrors

to

be censored by the Lon Nol

government and then filed.

for Cambodians eager for someMiraculously, one of my All the relief agencies work and thing to trade for food found old government censors has sureat here. The swimming pool considerable value early last year. vived. The onetime Lon Nol remains closed, but the Red Cross And then too, the suitcase I left bureaucrat is now one of the chief in my

recently managed to get the hotel's

behind back then

slimy sludge.

haste to leave, was also missing.

Most buildings Phnom Penh have over the past five years

Vietnamese management to clear the pool of its creeping, green and As before, the Hotel Monorom guesthouse.

is the more preferable

M. and Mme. Am Sophan who now

manage the Monorom are old hoteliers from Siem Reap near Angkor. They are about the most charmíng and gentle hosts you will meet anywhere,

for

lf

you're heading

Phnom Penh soon, please take Mrs. Sophan some assorted cutlery for her dining room. The Khmer Rouge or the Vietnamese, no one

ís sure which, made off with

all

foolish

in

been thoroughly looted.

The

Khmer Rouge started the process when they entered the city on April 17, 1975 and ordered the entire populatíon out. Anything commercial or material was deemed

capitalistic

or corrupt and much

of it destroyed. From January to April 1979, Vietnamese soldíers and many desperate Cambodians completed the pillage process.

Empty, decaying buildings were too much a temptation.

Foreign Ministry interpreters in the Vietnamese-backed regime. ln fact

of course, I met very few of the friends and acquaintances, I knew back then. Foreigners normally come to know only the French or English speakers, the doctors, professors, students, and bureaucrats, And most of them perished under the fanaticism of Khmer

Rouge

communism.

The Post Office has reopened and has accepted my cables once again. For four years there was no post office; in fact no

phones, no markets, no shops, no proper hospitals, no schools,

utensils.

My first resídence in phnom and pagodas. Most of these I had the somewhat eerie Penh, the ,,Hotel de la poste,,, moreno normal features of society

the dining

of sleeping in the same sits on the p.T.T. square, a shell of room loccupied five years ago, its former self. I recall sitting just before uS Marine helicopters there in one of the cheaper rooms spirited me and all but a handful writing my first dispatches after of more dedicated journalists from the overthrow of prince sihanouk, the US Embassy on April 12th. running them across the street experience

4

have returned

to

Vietnamese do-

minated Cambodia.

Now the maíls and

the

telegrams go (so far as I could tell uncensored) through Vietnam.

And letters reach the city by the

same route. The post office features

a

peculiar dead letter display.

Carefully kept behind a glass case is the correspondence that never quite made it.

Postmarked "september 8, 1979," the "lntermatch Corpora-

tion" of

Honesdale, Pennsylvania

had dispatched a letter for the "Phnom Penh Chamber of Commerce." There is of course no chamber Penh or

of

commerce

in Phnom

for that matter not

much Cambodia in the

commerce in past ten years. But someone obviously wanted to be in on the ground floor.

And just to

demonstrate computerized letters,

the range of a December 1978 form letter from Fort Worth, Texas was addressed to the "Societe Shell Cambodge."

It carried on the envelope next to the postmark the printed query "lnflation Problems?" Cambodia is tackling devastation, war and famine just now. lnflation comes I

ate r.

ln fact free enterprise is still

has

closed,

three other crowded marketplaces

in the city boast a v¡gorous variety

of activity. lt will be awhile before the newly issued Cambodian currency gains popular acceptance and

in the meantime just about anything will do as a medium of exchange

I don't

suppose Cambodia's

cultural heritage will very

soon

receive the attention that followers of Madame Giteau and Bernand Groslier once devoted to the National Museum and the ruins

of Angkor. But both treasures are again being cared for in a small way. A former archeology

student has helped to reopen the national museum and a remarkable number of stone figures are still in place. By memory, the student

has marked the places

where stood. Pich

missing statues once Keo, the newly appointed "conservationist" at Angkor Wat, told

in back,pnce stocked with

a

variety

of PX goods for American

- most notably, gold

and jewelry, rice and Vietnamese and Thai money. The government

seems to have made no attempt to curtail the active smuggling trade in goods from Thailand and

Vietnam.

The open markets produce

a

fair quality of Vietnamese "Pho", the popular noodles in soup, but we shall have to wait for the opening of proper restaurants.

Excitement arose one night as I

walked dlown Monivong Boulevard (the city's mainstreet), and discovered the neon sign in front of "La Pagode" again lit. Sadly the restaurant where we once savoured

a special brand of Algerian "cous cous" still has its doors closed.

con-

sumption only, now provide storage space for tons of dried fish and the hundreds of yards of fishing nets

which international relief

agencies

are donating.

But it is of course the destruction of the body and the spirit of the people of Cambodia that lingers in the impressions of the returning

visitor. The woman

peddling smuggled Thai cigarettes on a city street corner once had been the

wife of a wealthy banker. Not far away stands the shattered national

me, he hoped Groslier would return

bank building. The Khmer Rouge not only destroyed the bank, but they also destroyed her husband.

Life in Phnom Penh can never be

someday soon

the same.

to complete the painful restoration work left undone when Groslier, Keo and the several hundred other workers were ousted by the Khmer Rouge. The monuments stand ravished by time

and looting. but there is certainly

¡

(Jim Lourie is the Hong Kong burequ chief of ABC News, A onehour documentary based on his six-week visìt to Cqmbodia wos broadcast on the ABC television network in Morch.)

enough of Angkor left to save.

enjoyed a surprising revival. Though the old central market I used to

browse through

The neon was simply a sign of the revival of Phnom Penh's electricity.

The old French "Bibliotheque" will never quite be the same.

The Khmer Rouge turned it into a pigsty and destroyed most of the fine French colonial records.

But the library reopened three months ago and the relief organiza-

'Vo\

tion OXFAM promised it an "Encyclopedia Britannica" to get the

ÊÞ

reference section going.

The Old French

Cathedral,

of. course, suffered the worst fate

of the monuments to old Phnom Penh. Condemned as an unconscionable relic of colonial rule,

it

was totally dismantled. Not

a

single brick remains in its place at the top of the quiet green which sqparates

the old Hotel

\"

Royale

from the Lycee Descartes.

It is perhaps because of their praclicality that the monuments to American presence were not destroyed. "Embassy of the United States of America," the untarnished plague still reads, "Hours of Opera-

tion, Monday through Friday 7:30 to 12:30 pm and 2:30 to 5:30 pm, Saturdays 8:30 to 11:30." The building now houses the Ministry of the Fisheries. The warehouses

For more than ¡ust a new flat, now we offer uptodale interior decoration & custom-made furn¡ture to fit both your taste & your pocket, æ well as

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Dining out with the Khmer Rouge, in the jungles of Cambodia, can produce some funny feelings. MARSH CLARK, who did just that, tells us about it.

w)

a () ss o

.s {r

Time comeromon Dqvid Kennerly (L) ond lvlarsh Clark strike o pose with a Khmer Rouge sentry outside Pol Pot hideout.

One was tempted

to

pinch

himself as he sat in the jungle with

the people who mercilessly mur-

dered hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. At an evening

banquet, when the Khmer Rouge's

deputy premier leng Sary

insisted

on ceremoniously serving me my noodles, I felt like a man taking tea and crumpets with J ack the Ripper.

I had been invited

6

to visit the Khmer Rouge and interview their

December

president-prime minister Khieu Samphan. Although there were numerous delays and the trip

proved difficult to arrange, it was simple to execute. A Khmer Rougeowned truck pulled up to the front door of my hotel, the Oriental,

and we then

bumped

out

of

Bangkok for 10 hours, some ofthe last

rougher places

in the road being

smoothened by a bottle of Mekong whiskey shared by David Kennerly, my photographer, television cameraman Skip Brown and myself. The final leg was over a dusty road in almost pitch dark-

ness. At seven o'clock in the morning, we climbed out of the back of the truck to find 10 Khmer

Rouge grunts lined up ready to act baggage and

as porters for our equipment.

We then walked for an hour or so over hill-y terrain in northern Cambodia. Our hosts v/arned us not to step off the trail, saying there were many mines planted there-

ji length, we issued out

abouts. We saw numerous stakes.

At

pun

and most

impressive-well-armed troops, a neat field hospital, a radio school, a village filled with healthy,

Sary and company have evolved

smiling mothers cradling healthY,

often enough, they hope the world

smiling babies. We saw youngsters of five or six humming happily as they sharpened the loathsome punji

This will lead, they hope, to inter-

into a pleasant jungle clearing. Our quarters looked like a Cambodian

stakes.

Club Med-comfortable thatch huts, beds with mosquito netting, newlybuilt latrines. All the place lacked for a good get-away-from-it-all vacation was a swimming pool.

ious omelettes. For lunch, we barbecued chicken. There

But the almost total silence was a reminder that we were a long way from anywhere. Silent Khmer Rouge sentries stood off in the jungle, keeping careful watch. One of our party awoke at three a.m. to hear a strange jungle bird making a haunting call. "l could swear it was saying 'Pol Pot, Pol Pot,' " he said.

What the Khmer

showed us

Rouge was obviously the best

For breakfast, we ate delichad was

plenty of Thai beer and copious of Johnnie Walker Red

amounts Label.

a

new stiategy. By calling the Vietnamese monsters and aggressors

will forget that they, themselves, are villains of the vilest order. national pressure on Viet Nam to withdraw its army.

Their timing is right. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

lends a certain currency to the Khmer Rouge claim that Moscow plans to conquer the world and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, coupled with Soviet

I came away with the distinct impression that the Khmer Rouge are still a fighting force. What they use of such bases in Viet Nam as lack in numbers and material they Danang and Cam Ranh, is all part of that sinister plot. The Khmer undoubtedly make up in fanaticism.

They are sincere when they vow a' Rouge can also claim that they fight to the finish against the constitute the front line of defense Vietnamese. As long as there is for Thailand and the other ASEAN

one Khmer Rouge still alive, will have its people's

nations against the

I

avaricious

Cambodia

Vietnamese.

war.

(Marsh Clark is Hong Kong bureau chief for Time Magozine.)

Khieu Samphan, Pol Pot, leng

High quality genu¡ne hand-made

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Clear days on the Rhodesian scene, observed

by IAN WILSON of the

as

Canadian

Broadcasting Corp. during the elections.

Many familiar F.C.C. faces were there.

Nat Gibson of UPI stood add "chop-chop" to his commands. up at a press briefing in Salisbury The waiter would shuffle away and began a long, rambling question

in his distinctive Southern drawl After a few minutes, Nicholas Fenn, British spokesman for the .

governor, Lord Soames, peered over

his glasses at Gibson and rupted dryly, "are you

inter-

from

" Nat's response was drowned in laughter from the other assembled scribes and he never did get an answer to h is question/

Texas?

mumbling under his breath.

To get to the election story to drive. There were few choppers (unlike Viet Nam days) and they were reserved for

everyone had

observers and the military certainly not the press. So drive

we did. Over miles of back country dirt roads (some still mined) to

where

the guerrilla camps were

located.

They were a tough-looking

monologue.

bunch and carried their guns every-

Other Old Asia Hands were also on the scene - Jack Foisie of the Los Angeles Times, Rolly

where. . . even to the voting.

Carter

of UPITN and

Jensen and Nick Proffitt week to name a few.

I

of

Holger News-

had just returned after

a

month in Pakistan and Afghanistan and after the cold there it was a

delight

to be in the warmth of

As we drove to one camp down a back road in the middle of nowhere, I tooted a note of warning on the horn to a bicycle rider ahead of me who had a large basket of apples balanced on the back of his bike.

He had been riding along in a tranÇe and at the sound of the

Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The foreign press corps, of course, lived up to its reputation of promoting dignity and culture.

horn his hands shot up, the bike went one way, he fell into a ditch and his apples scattered every-

Mr. Jensen graced the elegant

As we roared past in a cloud

dining room

where.

of the Meikles Hotel of dust lcould see him in the in cutoff jeans and rear view mirror glaring at us.

each morning

ragged sweatshirt, plugging the virtues of the Dirty Shame Saloon.

He would invariably return

his

eggs (too cold), refuse the bacon

("crisp, 8

I

said 'crÌsp,' man")

and

About three days after my arrival in Salisbury, a huge bomb went off in the downtown area late one night, blowing up a church and smashing windows in one of the biggest hotels in the city -

where many pressmen were staying.

Lights! Cameras! Action ! TV cameras everywhere, and unruly cops who tried to prevent the TV

crews from filming the blast's aftermath. Several near fistfights as the

crowd cheered the cops.

ln the days which followed letters appeared in the press denouncing the wretched foreign press for trying to take pictures, and what were they doing there anyway?

Meikles Hotel was the press headquarters and as such had a continuing stream of oddly dressed individuals wandering through the lobby. Old ladies in flowered dresses sat in the lobby lounge sipping tea and watching the passing parade of lungle boots, flak jackets, tee shirts and tennis outfits.

Their world was ending and

could see they were anxious about it all. r

"Maybe he was just startled by the in the grille," observed Don Dixon, our CBC producer, referring to another of my

this summer os resident

triumphs earlier on the road.

lensman,)

rooster impaled

a

new one was dawning and you

(tan llÌtson moves to London CBC

I

COuNTRY SUPPERS From Monday, May 5th, on the 14th floor we will be serving special suppers featuring dishes from a different country each week (Monday to Saturday).

A set menu at$14per person served from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the 14th floor only starting May 5th with an OLD ENGLISH

will be

COUNTRY SUPPER.

MENU Romney March Kentish Broth

Old Norfolk Style Chicken

Pie

Bubble and Squeek Bread and Butter Pudding .e

Coffee and Tea

ù È

s

È

Other countries which will be

WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THESE GIJYS?: Looking better dressed thon they ever do when seen in the I 5th floor are two intrepid explorers of the Afghonistan cultural scene-Newsweek's Borry Came ond lilatt Miller of UPl.

THE EXODUS CONTINUES. . a

represented over the next 7 weeks

will be Belgium,

America, ltaly,

France, Germany and lndia.

Please make boo kings through Linda.

.

They'll soon be able to form

London branch of the F.C,C,, what with the continuing number of moves to the British capital.

The latest departees (this summer) include Humphrey Hudson and Barry Simpson of Reuters and lan Wilson, who will become sident cameraman

in

re-

London for

CBC,

And outgoing 2nd Vice President Tim Rossi is leaving Cothay Pocific soon to seek greener pastures back home in the U.K. And, as soon as a new Club

President is installed, Vicky Wakefield will be heading back to the United Slafesfor UPl.

crown pacific profess¡onal household packing conta¡ner¡zation.documentat¡on door-to-door serv ¡ce.insu rance free estimates

Tel

| 5-778026

Perhaps Senor Padilla

Didn't Enioy

BRAZILIAN NIGHT at the F. C. C., But the Folks shown here seemed to.

Photos bY Cambridge llong

NEW MEMBERS Dr. A. H. Poon, Braga Associates (Assoc.)

Mr. L. Mohring, ARD German TV, (Corres.)

Mr. Y. Nishimura, Jiji Press (Corres) Mr. W. Heering, Leisure Systems Ltd. (Asoc) Mr. John L. Miller, Art Post lnt. Ltd. (Asoc.)

Mr. John Clayden, The Royal Bank of Canada (Assoc) Mrs. Linda Hamilton, Leo Burnett Ltd., (Assoc) Mr. A. F. D. Scott, Oxford University Press (Assoc) Mr. K. Sabnani, Monico Electronics Ltd., (Assoc) Mr. M. Kabayashi, Kyodo News Service (Corres) Mr. M. O'Brien, Reuters (Corres) Miss E. L. Thomson, Nugan Hand lnt. (Assoc) Mr. James M. Reed, U.S. Consulate General (Assoc) Mr. l. Takamuki, The Bank of Japan (Assoc) Mr. G. P. Mead, HK Polytechnic (Assoc) Mr. A. J. Bishop, Dow Chemical Pacific Ltd (Assoc) Mr. A. G. Rostand Prates, Brazilian Consulate General (Assoc.)

Mr. James P. Sterba, The New York Times, (Corres) Mr. Gary G. Jones, Dow Chemical Pacific (Assoc) Mr, John Yeung, Kwong Sang & Co., (Assoc) Mr. R. Baker, British Airways, (Assoc)

Mr. Paul C. N. Mak, Oriental Data Systems Ltd., (Assoc) Miss Georgina Lee, Hilton lnternational (Asoc) Mr. Wilson C. S. Hung, Orient Overseas Container Line, (Assoc)

Mr. K. F. Hofland, lnt. Standard Brands lnc. (Assoc) Mr. J. Muir, American lndustrial Report (Corres) Mr. Neal Robbins, United Press lnt. (Corres) Mr. W. Montalbano, The Miami Herald, (Corres) Mr. G. Lovell, Reuters, (Corres) lVlr. F. T. Miller, Sino-British HK Ltd (Asoc) Mr. D. Croft, Wardley Ltd. (Asoc) Mr. K. Williams, Leo Burnett Ltd., (Assoc) Mr., D. Hall, Young & Rubican (HK) Ltd., (Assoc) Mr. H. Cheng, HK Tourist Association (Assoc) Mr. A. Johnson, Burwill, Trading Ltd., (Assoc) Mr. D. Dixon, Orion Pacific Ltd. (Ass贸c) Mr. V. Joyce, Citibank, (Asoc) Mr. W. Magno, Ted Bates Ltd., (Assoc) Mr. A. S. Bindra, Citibank (Assoc) Mr. G. A. Hume, The HK Electric Co. (Assoc) Mr. Harry Reid, Ogilvy & Mather (Assoc) 11

Life in Ho Chi Minh City is grim on fifth of the fall of Saigon.

Reuters correspondent

MICHAEL BATTYE Reports on

HO CHI MINH CITY

it

the mood today in Vietnam.

was considered a form

of

tran-

Resentment and apprehension flow

sport far too dangerous to use on

in strong currents under the cheerfully relaxed face presented by this

streets clogged

Vietnamese city the former Saigon - where time appears to

have stood

still

since the com-

munist victory five years ago.

Cafes booming out pre-1975

Western pop music are crowded, the tree-lined streets bustle and the so-called free market thrives, pro-

viding everything from bicycles to French champagne.

But conversations

off at the sight of a policeman or soldier - produce long lists of

grumbles over a standard of living that for many has plummetted and of fears that things will get worse.

Such fears are not confined to the middle class, which thrived

in the old South Vietnamese

economy - fuelled by a massive American presence and aid - but now appears to be suffering most from the new austerity.

"Not enough money, not enough food, everything very bad,"

said one cyclo driver E

with a deafening roar of motorcycles and cars.

Now there are almost no private cars to be seen on the

in

broken

nglish.

EVERYTHING IS SHORT

"There is a shortage of everything and everything is expensive," said one former soldier in the South Vietnamese Army,

through.

Before the communist victory

government and got into the business by selling their possessions

petrol stations closed and fenced off. Fuel is available only on the black market at the prohibitive price of 15 dong (nearly seven U.S. dollars at the official exchange

sellers

Spare parts are practicallY in any case and, according to residents, public transport vehicles mainly threewheeled ltalian scooter taxis, unavailable

American buses and station wagons - are kept going by cannibalizing broken down ones.

FOOD IS LIMITED

Food

shortages

also

One of the hundreds of of foreign cigarettes - they

cost nine dollars a pack - said he was a former high school teacher who was refused a job under the new regime. "l do not make a lot, but it's enough to live on for the moment," he said, He said that he and many others like him would like to leave Vietnam for the West as hundreds

of thousands of others have done.

But since the United Nations conference in Geneva last J uly, when Vietnam pledged to halt the massive exodus of "boat people" that prompted the meeting,

are

the price of

worrying them. The average month-

grasp, he said.

ly food ration allowed by the government is about 30 pounds of

food, But because of a succession of natural disasters that have hit the rice crop only 1 1 pounds of this can be bought as rice, the Vietnamese staple, at the cheap government price.

of

escape

is out of

his

"Before last July you could get out for 1,000 dollars in cash or gold, but now it's 4,000 or 5,000 dollars. I could not raise the money last year and there is less chance

even

this year."

ILLEGALS FEAR POLICE

The rest has to be made up potatoes and tapioca or of

market, and street peddlars include

former professional people

South

Vietnamese government who claim that they are not allowed to work at their own jobs by the communist

to live.

rice bought on the free market who said he had just spent a at two dollars for two pounds month's wages earned as a factory More than 10 times the governworker on a new tire for his bicycle. ment price - in a city where the It is perhaps the emergence average month ly wage is less of the bicycle as the dominant than 30 U.S. dollars. form of transport that best deYet there is plenty of money monstrates the changes this city to be made by some on the free has gone

officials of the former

streets and the number of motorcycles has fallen drastically with

rate ) per liter.

often cut

anniversary

and

Life is also tense for the unknown number of people living in the city illegally without identity cards - and thus no ration card in constant fear of being in trouble

with the police.

One Chinese woman working as a waitress said that if the police discovered her, she would be sent back to the New Economic Zone

to which

she and her family were sent three years ago because they 13

were suspected

of

She fled back to Ho Chi Minh un-

on land either

unused

or

formerlY devastated bY the war

aP-

he said.

contact with the government when-

One such Young man said his fellow draft-dodgers and he hopes will helP solve Viet Nam as casual laborers worked mainly food problems. market. "lf we avoid There are also Young men of or in the free

but which the Hanoi

ln that, the Young man

oeared to be following the general iine of manY Ho Chi Minh CitY residents who say theY avoid

wilíing to work in the field growing

crops

all

right,"

market traders,

Citv after a week. She was

we are

cont¿ct'lwith

being black

government

ever possible'

is

(Michael BottYe

bosed in

the Bàngkok bureau of Reuters')

THEY'RE HAVING A BALL (AND WE'RE ALL ¡NVITED) the Marco Our colleagues down at the nights accommodation at prizes include a Lesser Hotel.

Polo Press Club in Wanchai are having

their annual Ball on SaturdaY,

MaY

17, at the Holiday lnn featuring

bewildering assortment of door prizes and both a live band and

a

disco sounds.

camera, watch and carpet'

Entertainment

will be Pro-

vided during dinner bY the HolidaY

lnn band, Lito Naba and his Orchestra. After 11 P.ffi., Wings Disco will take over until the early

This Year's Press Ball will hours. cater for 500 PeoPle and the door morning Press Ball is basicallY The prizes include two round-triP event for the Hong fund-raising a three tickets to SingaPore Plus

PHOTO COPYING copy machine which is located behind the recePtion desk on the 14th floor, The service is available to members at a cost of 50d Per

copy. For coPies at recePtion.

14

Please see Linda

Press Club AdministraManager Pauline Fox (5-742-

Hong Kong

tion 247\.

Antony Hopkins has them in the aisles; Speaks at laugh-filled t.C.C' lunch AntonY HoPkins, the noted British conductor, comPoser and lecturer on music, kePt a jammed

The Club has hired a Photo-

Kong Journalists Association and the Hong Kong Press Club, both of which are housed in the CaPital Bldg. in Lockhart Rd. Tickets for the Press Ball, at $75 aPiece, are avilable through

Club entertainment

luncheon

crowd enthralled (and convulsed) until long afler il was time to be

back

at the office on a

recent

Wednesday.

the

The Magic Music Man entered F. C. C, Precincts toting a golf

bag and

a

Piano was Positioned

beside the Head Table'

Hopkins, whose radio show "Talking About Music" has been

for some 25Years, chose as his subject, "How to be

a BBC mainstaY

a Successful Failure'"

HoPkins was

the

auspices Philharmonic.

in town

of the

under

Hong Kong

Richord Sneider, the former U.S. Ambassadorto South Korea, oddressed ø packed F.C,C, professionol luncheon, Sneider, currently a professor of lnternationol Relotions at New York's Columbia University, spoke on the problems of Asio,

ìo I q)

.q

sè

15

of the Hearst Newspapers'n recently' HEARST, f R'' was in Hong Kong

The Editor-in-Chief WILLIAM RANDOLPH

told

And this is what he He liked what he saw in Our Town' column' EDITOR'S REPORT' American readers in his syndicated

-Tl HONG KONG-My favorite

city at home is San Francisco. ln

Europe, it's London. ln the Far East, it's Hong Kong, hands down.

This is one of the great cities of the world. lt is also one of the most prosperous, and that is due in

no small measure to the fact that British politics don't have any effect here. But more later about the economic miracle of this hustling, bustling, exhilarating har-

bor metropolis with its

teeming

millions of cheerful, hard-working, efficient Chinese and its competent Brยกtishled system of mostlY nonpolitical government.

First, a little about the picturesqueness of this incredible relic of the once globe-circling

British empire, its people and its h

istory.

After leaving Sydney, Austra-

enterprise, its pleasures and frivolities. Their labor is cheap. That and

the extรฐnt of the foreign exchange they get here in hard currency.

their

eager will to work, their inherent intelligence and vitality have helped build Hong Kong into

There are 200 development projects under way in China with Hong

a modern industrial city and major

there were none."

world financial center.

Founded on contraband and conquest, Hong Kong has been a British colony since 1841 , when the former pirates' den was ceded "in

perpetuity" during the war in which China fought to stoP the British from selling opium in the country. ln 1898, the New Territories were leased to Britain for 99 years.

Peking's governments, before and since the communist control,

have never recognized these socalled "unequal treaties." There has, therefore, been a great deal of uncertainty as to what would haP-

lia, we stopped here for a couPle of days en route to Peking. The harbor is like San Francisco BaY. The skyscrapers are like New York City, except that here manY of

pen when the lease exPires 17 years hence, and this has in Past

steep hills.

Governor

them rise along the f lanks of From the 20th floor of

my Mandarin Hotel window is a magni-

ficent view of the harbor across whose broad expanse ancient-

looking Chinese lug-sail junks cross

the bows of luxury cruise

shiPs

and cargo vessels. NearlY 100,000 vessels-over 100 million tonsenter and clear the world's seventh largest port annually. On an average day, 24O ocean-going vessels and river trade craft arrive and depart.

SEA OF HUMANITY

With nearly 6 million people packed into about 400 square miles of space on Hong Kong lsland and neighboring Kowloon and the New Territories, this last important British crown colonY is literally a

sea

of Oriental humanity.

Approximately 98 percent

of

the

population are Chinese, mainlY refugees or descendants of refugees from Communist China. They appear to be a special kind of Chinese, culturally changed by contact with the West, thoroughlY accustomed and receptive to its free

years caused concern about continued foreign investment in Hong Kong.

Sir Murray MacLehose, the

of Hong Kong, told us that when he visited Peking last year and raised the question with Vice Premier Deng XiaoPing, the

latter said: "Please tell the businessmen of Hong Kong to Put their hearts and minds at ease."

Of course, the diminutive, dynamic, current strong-arm of China, who visited the United States last year, may not be in power in 1997. However, Hong Kong's capitalist system is of such great importance to Communist China for hard foreign-currencY trade and as a source of technological and managerial know-how that Sir Murray and our own consul general and chief "Chinawatcher" in Hong Kong, Thomas Shoesmith, believe that whoever rules China in the next decade will seeing

the

status

quo maintained.

"China gets 3 billion U'S. dollars annually from trade with Hong Kong," the governor general said. "China's economy depends on

A few

years ago,

The change, he explained,

is

due to the

long-range modernization program launched by the

Peking government under the leadership of Chairman Hua Guofeng and the pragmatic Vice Premier Deng.

Shoesmith

told us

Peking

now sends its officials here to study how the efficient functioning of the free-enterprise capitalist system can

applied to communist-ruled China. "They are," he added, "studying everything from the mass-transit system to the Postal

be

facilities, garbage disposal and hotel management."

Sir Murray also said Peking is resorting lo greaher use of free-

enterprise incentives to get increased productivity from industrial workers and farmers by giving the former bonuses for exceeding quotas and allowing the latter to sell part of the produce on free markets.

THEY'RE NOT DUMB ln other words, these present Chinese leaders seem to be bright

enough

WON'T BE AROUND

be interested in

Kong financing.

to

realize

you

cannot

achieve strong economic progress by forcing people to work under the slave-like principles of communist dogma.

Which brings me to the amazing example of what a free-enterprise system, unhampered by political machi nations, u nfettered by specialinterest pressure grouPs and excessive government regulations, has been able to accomplish here.

At the end of World War ll, when the defeated Japanese turned the territory back to the British, Hong Kong was on the brink of economic collapse.

lt

had no fore-

ign trade. lts 600,000 inhabitants, mostly Chinese, were on the verge of starvation.

Today, despite a 10-times increase in its population, it has a thriving economy and one of the 17

-t

_1

generates sufficient revenue to iinun.. essential public services, such as health care, old-age Pensions and, in times of .emergencY, aid to the unemPloYed. While there is no unemPloY$600 aPProximatelY of surplus insurance, the governor told ment million. during the 1974 recession, of us that success This astonishing

highest percapita incomes in Asia' Th1 government has no Public debt' It does not engage in deficit financing. lts revenues always exceed its expenditures. lt iust announced a

the free-market system in building rapid economic growth and a generous distribution

of

income is

ĂŁttribrt.d to the e limi natio n of politics from the economy, an abundance

of hard-working

of

PeoPle, business,

very little regulation low taxes and, in recent Years, the brilliant statesmanship of its governor, MacLehose, a former British ambassador and career d iPlomat' Sir MurraY, who is aPPointed

by Queen Elizabeth and is resPon-

vouchers for food and other necessities were issued on a threemonth basis. lndicative of the sense of Chinese Pride and reluctance to live on charitY, manY of the un-

employed returned the unused vouchers as soon as theY found

meant bY "confrontational democracy," he said: "OPPosition for

the sake of oPPosition, or to get elected. " It occurred to me that we could do with a little less "confrontational democracy" now being practiced in the presidential primary camPaign and make more use of the best brains in our countrY

to curb inflation, which I note

!s

now running at the appalling annual

rate

of 1 8

Percent.

lt

certainlY

would be beneficial to take politics out of our economy. I

work.

BUT VOTERS APATHETIC The onlY elected bodies are

the urban councils that handle local communitY matters, subject

to the governor's ultimate approval' to her and the British Governgeneral Public shows little LETTERS The ment, through the Foreign and in politics. Voting eligibilinterest Commonwealth Office, has absoity requires some education, eslute authoritY in Hong Kong' ln pecially the abilitY to sPeak and other words, he has the Powers of write English. There is no universal a dictator, but he said to t'ls: "To but 440,000 men and govern successfullY, one must suffrage,are women PresentlY eligible to govern bY consent." number, however, this Of vote. registered to vote are 31,000 only SIR MURRAY'S THINKING actuallY voted in The CorresPondent 12,000 only government and of His PhilosPhY elections' Council I suPPose in the Past two in Hong Kong is simPle: 1) law and last year's Urban feel aPParentlY years Mike Winslow has received The PeoPle order, 2) use of the best brains bY run is the than Atilla the Hun, as abuse long as more that Place business among not onlY the the Ghengis Khan and the late unfor brains available to best the common the PeoPle leaders but need to lamented A. Hitler. help plan and run the citY-state's common good, there is no with Now that he is leaving the get involved Politics. affairs (he selected a former bus work job of Club Manager I not would system "This thankless his of conductor to be a member great sense of would like to say that I think he a vras there unless minimum 3) Legislative Council), the Part of the has done a damn good job in interference in business and private responsibilitY on and other impossible circumstances and l, for businessmen bankers, affairs, and 4) creation of an to one, would like to record mY dedicated are who individuals to Profitenvironment conducive Hong of welfare genuine the thanks. able investment.

Kevin Sincloir Hong Kong has the lowest Kong," Sir MurraY said.

"We have continuitY of tax rates on earnings and Profits we have Editor of any industrial state in the world' government and PolicY, PeoPle know taxes. predictable 1 5 to limited are taxes lncome The CorresPondent percent. CorPorate taxes average someone is not going to be elected It was very nice of You tax only 1 7 Percenl of Profits, and who an article about me (The write to and there are no capital gains taxes' The rates Feb.) in the Club ible Correspondent, new budget provides tax reductions regul it very I appreciated publication. do top for individuals and families.

There are no tariffs. No not have confrontational demo- much. Thanks and say "howdY" have that, You exchange controls' No subsidies to cracy. When You to everyone at the Club for me. economic have to growth bound are economic The industry.

C, P. Liao facilitated bY the low taxes and nstab l ÂĄty. " Kerrville, Texas he what asked we When lack of government intervention

sible

to the Editor

i

18

i

S

o

a

ò È'

a<

The Dutch, British

and

Spanish are al iT again - this time in a three-way race for the F. C. C. p

residency.

Fighting it out for the top Club post are Donald Wise of the

Far Eostern Economic Review '

freelance Hugh Van Es and Javier M. de Padilla, Asian correspondent

for La Vonguordio of

Barcelona.

Michael Keats of UPI is unopposed for i st Vice President.

On the Associate side, Jim Viney of the South China Morning Post has squared off against Tim Street of Levi Strauss for 2nd Vice President.

Two popular local radio

per-

sonalities, David Wong of RIHK and Nick Demuth of Commercìal Rodio are seeking the J ournalist

Member position

of the

new

Board.

A foul-up by the Club printer voided initial ballots of Journalist

and Associate members and new ones were rushed out by the Club's 19

È

a È

U

\

0<

30, following the Annual

hardworking office staff'

Ballots, including those from overseas, must be received bY 1 p.m. on WednesdaY, MaY 21 ' The 1980-81 Board of Governors

will

assume office

on FridaY,

MaY

General

Meeting,

The

accomPanYing Photos

show a solemn moment and a bit of frivolitY at the Annual Nomina-

tion Meeting.

a cord of mYsterY and excitement

in the heart of the

reader. WhY?

Mainly because so many writers have used it in scenes such as the one above. But an enterprising team

investigative writers, one from California and one from New Zea-

lnspector, slaPPing the thin file

of

onto the desk.

land, has blown the lid off the

"something big, Sir?" man' the young '

asked

mucír-revered international "police

¡¡We've alreadY contacted force" in a recent book.

Here's what I (and most said THE INTERPOL CONNECTION Scotland Yard and the FBl," other peoPle) used to think about An lnquirY lnto the lnter- the lnspector. He looked steadilY is a and added: INTERPOL: "INTERPOL national Criminal Police Organi- at the Younger officer intergovernmental recognized "We moY have to call in INTERzation police force whose task is to hunt POL.'' and

By Trevor Meldal-Johnsen down and arrest the international mean You Sir? "INTERPOL, Vaughn Young criminal. A multinational force, The Dial Press, New York, $9'95 it's that big? " Nations, Big. lmPortant. Secret' much like the United of of uP made is Police lnterpol I nternational' "YOU'D BETTER get onto Cloak-and-dagger. fide bona a INTERPOL strikes the Free World and is this right awaY, Swinton," said the The very word 20

law enforcement agency in its own

right. Among the first to fight international terrorism and skyjackings, INTERPOL still leads the war on narcotics, while assisting a number of nations in the continuing search for wanted Nazi war criminals. One of the most highly respected groups in the world, INTERPOL like any other police force, is under governmental control to safeguard the basic rights of every citizen.

To this end it operates according to a strict code of behavior and

adheres

to the

highest ethical

Rumania

lf

that's how you saw that

force, think again.

Here's what the two intrepid reporters found out: INTE RPOL

is a private organization andhasno police powers. Up to 1971, the

U.N. classified it as

"non-

governmental." Then they decided

to

recognize

arrangement.

As a

it

under

a

"specjal

"

privategroup, INTE RPOL

has no official power to arrest or even to investigate anything. Strictly speaking, its only function is to obtain and sell anybody,

information, like a regular detective agency.

INTERPOL is a multinational

force? Hardly, since eighty per cent of its staff are French. The other twenty per cent are mostly retired policemen from many

different countries, giving it a sort of multinational strength, though

Yugoslavia

are

ship also includes a number of dictatorships in Africa, South America and the Middle Easl.

INTERPOL not only was not the first group to fightterrorism and

skyjackings, they would not

talk about it for several Only in 1973, they finally

even

years. issued

of from just one source - its own press releases. ln 1974 lnlerpol boasted that the so-called "French

Connection" was out of operation, and a few days later New York officials confiscated heroin worth US$12,000,000 from a still-active

courier. About the war criminals: lnterpol has publicly refused to assist in the hunt.

INTERPOL may be highly

respected by some, but it has also been described as "little more than

a

private post office." As for

safeguarding the rights of every cifizen, no mention of this is made in the group's constitution. And in regard to its strict code of behavior,

INTERPOL is like the U.N.?

Nope. lt is not a part of the U.N.,

and its decisions are not binding on U.N. members in any way.

This is the big one. "INTERPOL is a bono fide law enforcement agency." lt is no such thing! lt is a private company. lt just happens that its subscribers are law enforcement agencies. Those police forces, by the way, are not only those of

the socalled Free World. Both

ln recent

years, China freaks

publisher's lists featuring books about China. And truth to tell, a lot of them haven't been very good.

Lois Fisher's "A

Peking

Diary" is a

refreshing exception.

Fisher and her German correspondent husband Gerhard Ruge (Die

Welt) moved

to

Peking early in

1973.

"The last item the packers put into our baggage in Germany was a bicycle Gerhard had received

as a farewell gift from his office.

We all thought it was an amusing joke but later this became my most important possession in China." uses

For some 250 pages, Fisher that bicycle as a stage prop

to recount her experiences as one of the few Westerners allowed in

no such code or set of rules is those days to fathom the vagaries issued

to its members, nor is the of life in the world's most populous

organization held responsible, by

members,

for its actions and

decisions.

strength

headquarters.

$10.9s

of

INTERPOL's fame as a leader the war on narcotics, has come

falsely-presented group that has no

regions at

St. Martin's Press,

that means!

national company (or wire service)

or

By Lois Fisher

have been subjected to a steady diet

that has

those countries

of modern China

of international obligations, " but no one can tell exactly what

So. ls INTERPOL justa joke,a

on

A Personal Account

vance

not much more so than any multirepresentatives stationed in various countries, and specialists

A PEKING DAIRY

a resolution that merely urged "due enforcement of the law and obser-

standards."

prestigious

and

members, and so is Cuba. Member-

at all? ln fact, it is a coordinating and policy-making organization, where law enforcement officers of many countries can get together and discuss their

country,

Fisher recounts sandstorms,

flat hunting,

Chinese

lessons,

shopping and Chinese food in a straightforward, almost reportorial writing style.

Toward the close of the book, Fisher really warms to the subject at hand, and it springs to life.

problems to come up with mutually

The riots in Tien An

agreeable solutions. Each year it holds seminars in various countries to discuss specific areas of criminal activity and how to best combat it.

So let's change those adject-

Square and the subsequent death

Men

of

ives to: lmportant, necessary, positive, well-meant. Throw out big, but let them keep "lnter-

Chairman Mao Tse-tung she recounts in a style made dramatic by its seeming understatement.

Her years in China appear to have taught Fisher to be frugal with her words. She has spared readers the hyperenthusiasm that

national.

characterizes most

"ยก

-ROGER G. BOSCHMAN

-

first books. ยก

VICTORIA WAKEFIELD 21

SOCIAL NOTES FROM ALL OVEh

tU

È

s Èr

{ F. C. C'

Presidents' Past and present, have been all over the olace latelY.

Outgoing Prexy VickY Wakefield shows a smile of relief as her

term nears an end. Seated are

former presidents

Al Kaff,

Eddie

Tseng, Eddie Wu and BertOkuleY' A few daYs later, Francis Lara, Club President in 1958,

Fronce

Press

in Paris, is flanked bY

the aforementioned Messers Wu and Tseng, Mrs. Wakefield, GuY Searls and OkuleY.

showed uP in Hong Kong' Lara, now Personnel Director 'for Agence

#.

3?'

r\\ t

tsr *þ *

Morcel Davis qnd Richord Hughes shore o toast ot speciol F. C. C' luncheon which honoreu Froncis Laro, who looks on'

Eddie lllu finds something he hos said extremely funny. Donald Wise, on the other hond, manoges only a smile.

22

t{i È

s

È!

ilr '{i;

#,

"ùt-The

t¿r[sto{ç sfcial,everlr Sunday

Moresbv arid Cdirnsthe big game fishing ciapitals of the uorld. ûo Port

We hear more tall stories about the lb black marlin that got away last time but wont this time, about the 40 lb barramundi that fight to get on to the hook, and some of it's even true. It's just that when you fly to the world's two most famors reeß, estuary and big game fshing spots, you seem to carry a surprising number of businessmen who intend to, er, *stop over'on their way to or from Sydney or Brisbane or wherever.

\W

If youd care to unwind a bit on your next trþ to Australia, fly our big "bird

of paradise" jet on Sunday evening.

WeT take you to Port Moresby, or Cairns, or Brisbane, or Sydney, and help you arrange a couple of days off to do battle with the big ones on your way.

See your travel agent. Or Jardine Airways, G/F., Alexandra House, Hong Kong or Peninsula Hotel Arcade, Kowloon. Telephon e 5 -77 5023

AIßilUEI

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