Refugees Southeast Asia

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, responding to complaints that the West is losing its compassion for Indochinese refugees, told Southeast Asian foreign ministers Thursday that the United States will continue to provide homes for "substantial numbers" of displaced persons. In a speech to the opening session of the annual dialogue between the Assn.

Summer classes are finally over for these 25 boisterous pupils. After months of intense lessons, they are looking forward to a little fun. But not necessarily at Splash Mountain or on the beach. These students are more likely to prefer sipping some freshly brewed tea, strolling through a park or just staying indoors and engaging in some old-fashioned conversation.

Restrictions in U.S. immigration policy are preventing many Indochinese refugees from entering this country, condemning them to squalid, dangerous camps where they accuse the United States of "turning its back on them," a refugee assistance group charged Monday. Almost 300,000 displaced Cambodians in camps along the Thai-Cambodian border are "extremely vulnerable" to external attacks and to robbery, rape and extortion, said Le Xuan Khoa, president of the Indochina Resource Action Center.

Tears in her eyes, In Or bitterly recalled the day her husband, then a rebel Cambodian soldier, was reported killed in a fire fight with forces supporting the murderous Khmer Rouge that once ruled that country. Alone with two young children, she made the brave but risky decision to flee. "I wanted to be in a place of peace and freedom--the United States," the slightly built Or, 36, recalled Wednesday.

As Western and Southeast Asian nations met Tuesday in Geneva to consider changes in their policy toward Vietnamese "boat people," Hong Kong authorities were coming under increasing fire for the way they determine whether Vietnamese qualify for refugee status.

Khang Lai sees his entire life on the shelves and in the file cabinets of this small room on the third floor of UC Irvine's main library. The 23-year-old student picks up a book and thumbs through, nodding at the descriptions of Southeast Asian refugee camps, where he and his family lived after fleeing the Communist takeover in Vietnam two decades ago.

When Mony Nou and his mother opened the Angkor Market in 1979, it was one of only two Asian markets in Long Beach. Situated in a 400-square-foot building on Anaheim Street, the place eked out a living selling mostly Cambodian food to Cambodian customers. "Downtown was boarded up," recalls Nou, 28, a Cambodian refugee, referring to the economically deprived inner-city area northeast of the city's booming waterfront. "We had to struggle a bit."

On the evening members of the Pomona Boys opened fire on Vietnamese diners at the My Nguyen Restaurant in Garden Grove, police heard from one potential witness after another--"I was in the restroom. I didn't see anything." The cafe's tiny lavatory must have been a tight squeeze. More than a dozen people said they happened to be in there the exact moment six patrons were shot, two fatally, as payback for a flirtatious look at a gang member's date.

The Thai government will turn back all future illegal refugees from its Communist-ruled neighbor states, Interior Minister Prachuap Suntharangkun declared Monday. Proclaiming what Radio Thailand termed a "prevent-and-deter action against all illegal refugees," Prachuap, Thailand's top law enforcement official, warned foreign governments not to interfere with Thai policy. He appeared to direct his remarks at the United States.