2 days ago
'I was given food, money. It was heaven': Ex-Vietnamese boat refugee recalls 1980s stay at Singapore camp
When Mr Thao Dinh passed through Singapore's Changi Airport about a decade ago on his way from his adopted home of Australia to Vietnam, the land of his birth, the stopover stirred up a wave of memories.
In the 1980s, Mr Dinh, now 54, had called Singapore home for seven months as a 10-year-old, fleeing post-war Vietnam without his parents.
He was among thousands of Vietnamese refugees who lived at a camp in Sembawang, near the island's northern coast.
The Hawkins Road Refugee Camp operated for nearly two decades, housing so-called Vietnamese boat people – refugees who fled their homeland by sea after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
Set up in 1978 at a former British army barracks, the camp served as a temporary refuge before the displaced Vietnamese were resettled in other countries.
At the time, Singapore – as a small nation – did not allow all Vietnamese refugees to come ashore, and it did not accept them for permanent resettlement.
Instead, an arrangement was made with the Singapore Government: the Hawkins Road camp could hold up to 1,000 refugees at any one time, and each person had to leave within three months, The Straits Times reported in October 1981.
The report also stated that refugees were allowed to land only if they had been picked up by ships flying the flag of a country that guaranteed to take them in, if no other nation were to make an offer.
Mr Dinh eventually resettled in Australia, after spending seven months in the camp.
LEAVING VIETNAM
The year was 1981.
Ten-year-old Thao, the eldest of six children, was living in the south of Vietnam between Ho Chi Minh City and Dalat. His parents worked as farmers to raise him alongside his four younger sisters and younger brother.
The United States had withdrawn the last of its military forces from Vietnam in 1973. The Vietnam War came to an end in April 1975 when Saigon – the capital of South Vietnam – fell to North Vietnamese forces.
In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to topple Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime. Soon after, in February 1979, Chinese troops launched a surprise attack on northern Vietnam, sparking the brief but intense Sino-Vietnamese War.
On the back of years of conflict, a family friend approached Mr Dinh's parents with a request: a loan to help send his son overseas.
In return for the favour, his parents asked that Mr Dinh be taken along too.
'We were very conscious that a lot of young men were being conscripted. Fearing that that would be the future for me, they wanted me to go overseas,' he said.
The plan was to get Mr Dinh out of Vietnam first. His family would follow later, with hopes of reuniting abroad.
'I was sort of like a pathfinder. So after I was picked up and went into the camp, I would send communication to my parents to say that I made it.'
This marked the start of Mr Dinh's journey to Singapore.
The arrangement was for the two boys to meet in Saigon, where they would be handed over to a group of people who would take charge of the journey from that point on.
'We started out from the city, but the way they planned it was a bit tricky – that instead of meeting up on a boat at the coast, we (wanted to) avoid attention … so we would break up into small, different groups and start out in little boat taxis in the city and then go over to the coast.
'Once at the coast, we jumped onto a bigger taxi and then – I don't know how many, but dozens or something – medium taxis then transported us out to a bigger boat.
'Apparently the (big) boat was only 12.5 metres in length, and by the time we landed in Singapore, we found out there were 138 people on the boat.'
They set off from Saigon under the cover of night, hoping the boat would make it undetected into international waters, where a passing cargo ship might pick them up.
But about a day into the journey, the engine failed and the boat was left drifting at sea.
'I was very seasick,' Mr Dinh recalled. 'Everything was so overwhelming.'
'We drifted, I believe, for four days, then we were picked up at sea around the fifth day by a Dutch oil tanker.'
As they had been drifting at sea, a fierce storm bore down on them.
'We were sort of preparing ourselves (for the worst),' said Mr Dinh.
'We said our prayers and all that … and I think the water was up to the chest in the boat.'
At that point, Mr Dinh said he was knocked out and 'dead seasick'. When he finally opened his eyes, he thought he was staring at a 'huge city' in front of him.
'It was actually the oil tanker. It was so huge that it appeared to be like a city.'
Yet while it seemed help had arrived, the storm was so strong that they could not steer their boat close enough to the ship.
Instead, crew members aboard the oil tanker threw down a rope. They instructed Mr Dinh and others in the group to secure the rope to their smaller vessel, and to be towed alongside the bigger ship until the storm had eased.
Once the storm had passed, the crew lowered ropes and ladders to bring the passengers safely aboard.
'I was picked up at sea on August 15, 1981, and I believe it took a day or two to get on the ship and into the camp,' said Mr Dinh. "So around mid-August 1981, I came into the camp. I was 10 years old then.'
LIFE AT THE HAWKINS ROAD CAMP
Mr Dinh still remembers his first impression of Singapore after arriving at night and making the journey to the Hawkins Road camp.
'From the city towards the camp, it was dark and I was a bit scared that we were going into a jungle,' he said.
'And then we entered the camp … and I just took things as they were, day by day.'
According to an October 1981 report by The Straits Times, one challenge faced by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was ensuring that refugees left the Hawkins Road camp within the agreed three-month window. Often, accepting countries were not able to process them that quickly.
Managing the camp's population cap was also a struggle. In August that year, for instance, an estimated 4,000 refugees were living in the camp waiting to be resettled – far above the 1,000-person limit, the report said.
Mr Dinh, who arrived that August, remembers this clearly.
'When I came into the camp, I think it would have been almost the peak of the refugee crisis. The camp was literally full,' he said.
Travelling alone, he was classified as an unaccompanied minor upon arrival. But the on-site orphanage or 'minor house' – meant to house children like him – was 'packed full' and could not take him in, he recalled.
'So I slept right next to the gutter outside, near the soccer field at house number 21.'
The camp functioned very much like a village.
Mr Dinh recalled a grocery store and coffee shop within the compound. There was also a library, classrooms where English lessons were held for the refugees, and a hospital that also served as a mental health facility.
'At the early stages, I did enrol into (the classes) to learn English. But then the class would change so quickly – people left so quickly and new people were coming in. (It was) really chaotic and after a while, it just didn't get anywhere.'
He also remembered being given a daily allowance of S$2.50.
'Each time, I would go and buy an apple at the grocery store in the camp, with a bottle of Coke,' said Mr Dinh, adding that he would then sit at a wooden bridge in the camp that overlooked the soccer field.
Because the refugees were expected to be resettled within three months, most people passed through the camp fairly quickly, including many from the same boat Mr Dinh had arrived on, he said.
'I used to cry a lot, because people were coming and going all the time … and they all ended up going before me. So I can remember, there's a lot of tears (because) I had to say goodbye to so many of them.'
Mr Dinh held on to the hope of reuniting with his family, who were expected to flee Vietnam after him.
'Almost everyday, we knew people were coming in and we all crowded around the gate and around the fence, looking out and hoping that we would find some of our relatives there,' he said.
"I remember that I used to cry everyday, going out just hoping to find my father.'
He also remembered feasting on donations of cabbages that were brought into the camp. 'There was an abundance of them, and I used to pickle them and eat them a lot.'
What Mr Dinh lacked in family interactions, he found in part through the kindness of missionaries and local volunteers who came into the camp during his stay there.
Among those who left a lasting impression were a Franciscan priest he fondly called Father Taylor – 'who I named my email address after,' Mr Dinh quipped – and a Redemptorist priest and missionary, Father PJ O'Neill.
He recalled how the priests would enter the camp on weekends to conduct Mass, where he often served as an altar boy.
Later on, Mr Dinh also connected with a Singaporean volunteer, Mr Gabriel Tan, who would come into the camp to spend time with the refugees – sometimes even taking them out.
'I did remember that we were allowed to go outside … and I can remember going to a shopping centre at Marsiling,' said Mr Dinh.
'Then I used to take the kids with me to the bridge overlooking Malaysia near the camp … and we used to go along there collecting shells and things out there.'
Over time, the camp began to empty out as more refugees were resettled. Mr Dinh, however, remained as he was holding out for news about his family.
'I ended up being there seven months, which is a lot longer than anyone in the camp,' he said.
Months later, Mr Dinh finally received the news that his father and three of his sisters had made it to Malaysia. His youngest sister had escaped separately with their grandmother, but the three-year-old died at sea just before they reached land.
They reconnected through the refugee commission, which helped facilitate arrangements for the family to be granted visas to Australia. The plan was to reunite in Sydney.
Mr Dinh added that his mother and younger brother had also tried to flee Vietnam, but gave up after a few failed attempts. In the end, they waited for his father to sponsor their move to Australia a few years later.
'By March 1982, when I left the camp, it was literally empty. There were only a few people left in every house, and you can see all they left (behind) – all the belongings, their crockeries and blankets. It was just like a whole big rubbish dump – no people, like a deserted place.'
The Hawkins Road camp was officially shut down in June 1996, after operating for almost two decades.
Speaking in Parliament in 1998, then-Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said that Singapore was a small country with limited resources and could not accept anyone who claimed to be a refugee.
'We would otherwise be easily overwhelmed by sheer numbers. This would lead to a grave national, social and security problem.'
He said that Singapore had previously accepted Vietnamese refugees if a third country guaranteed to take them. However, not all these countries honoured their promise and 'we were saddled with the Vietnamese refugees for a long time.'
"We have learnt our lesson and will no longer accept any refugees even if third countries promise to resettle them.'
'HOPE OF STARTING A NEW LIFE'
While the Hawkins Road camp offered Mr Dinh a temporary refuge, he never let go of the hope that he would one day be resettled and reunited with his family.
'There was always that sort of hope – that hope and the urge and expectation of going to a third country to be resettled, and starting a new life,' he said.
This came in the form of the family's resettlement and reunification in Sydney, Australia.
For a while, it seemed like things were picking up.
In Australia, Mr Dinh was offered a scholarship to attend a 'prestigious' boarding school in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales.
'It was just sheer luck, coincidence, and nothing (we) planned,' he said.
Mr Dinh also managed to reconnect with some of the volunteers and fellow refugees he had befriended during his time at the Hawkins Road camp.
'When we left the camp, we never thought that we would see each other again,' he said, adding that the goodbyes were among the hardest parts of his time there.
This made the unexpected reunions years later, outside of the camp, all the more a pleasant surprise.
In 1986, a few years after leaving Singapore, Mr Dinh reunited with Mr Gabriel Tan when the volunteer visited Australia.
He also got in touch with another former refugee from the minor house, who had since resettled in the United States.
But his new life in Australia came with its own set of challenges.
After leaving the boarding school, Mr Dinh entered the priesthood – a path that would later take a dark turn. While training to become a priest, he was sexually abused for seven years.
'After seven years, I'd had enough, so I left. I was actually abused by a person 20 years my senior. It was my parents' friend, and he was a priest as well,' said Mr Dinh, adding that he was estranged from his family as a result.
Still, Mr Dinh has continued to show resilience in the face of adversity, slowly rebuilding his life and family along the way.
After leaving the priesthood, he met and fell in love with his first wife. The pair married a few years later.
A business opportunity soon followed, and the couple moved to Brisbane in 1999 to start afresh. There, Mr Dinh ran a bakery and retail food franchise for nearly 20 years.
The couple divorced about a decade ago.
Today, Mr Dinh remains in Brisbane, where he lives with his 19-year-old son, who has autism. His 22-year-old daughter lives with his ex-wife.
He remarried five years ago, and has two children from his second marriage. The family lived together in Australia for about three years, but were later separated due to immigration issues.
'The Australian government decided they didn't believe that it was a genuine marriage, so they sent (my wife) and the kids back (to Vietnam),' he said.
'We are in the process of reapplying … and she's just waiting for her visa to be processed to come back to Australia.'
Mr Dinh also found some measure of closure in the years after the sexual abuse.
In 2008, the abuse he suffered was investigated by the federal police. Both the government and the church later acknowledged what had happened during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
He and other survivors received an official apology in Australia's parliament, and Mr Dinh now receives a pension.
Looking back on his time in Singapore, Mr Dinh said: 'I never expected anything. And for me, at the time, it was heaven. It was more than I expected.
'I was given food, I was given money … I had nothing to complain about, and there's no mistreatment that I knew of, even though I slept in the gutter.
'Afterwards (after leaving the camp), I knew that the Singapore camp was like a refugee heaven compared to all the other camps – that's my impression.'
While he has not visited Singapore since leaving the camp – apart from the brief transit through Changi Airport about a decade ago – Mr Dinh hopes to return one day.
'If I have the chance, I would love to revisit the area, just to see how everything is.'
Reminiscing on his time here, Mr Dinh said: 'I think the whole time, there was always a sense of hope because we knew that there (would be) light at the end of the tunnel and there's something good coming at the end of the tunnel.
'So there's always that looking forward to it.'
