
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 25, 1990                   TAG: 9007250449
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HONG KONG                                LENGTH: Medium

THOUSANDS TRY TO FLEE HONG KONG FOR BRITAIN

Tens of thousands of people mobbed Hong Kong's Immigration Department today, the last day to apply for permission to move to Britain and escape communist rule when the British colony reverts to China in 1997.

Laborers, doctors, clerks, housewives and teachers squeezed into a line that snaked hundreds of yards through downtown Hong Kong. At least 50 people had spent the night, and several children fainted in the hot, humid weather.

Immigration officials estimated that 30,000 people stood in line. By 5 p.m., 4,857 heads of households had applied for the nationality package, they said. This was in addition to an estimated 26,000 who submitted applications in previous days.

"If we don't apply, we'll lose out and become poor like all communists," said John Lam, a 41-year-old office manager in a trading house, who had been waiting for six hours.

"I'm doing this for my son," he said, pointing to a baby sleeping in a pink stroller.

The British government is offering about 225,000 Hong Kong residents the right to live in Britain. According to Hong Kong immigration officials, about 3.5 million of Hong Kong's 5.7 million people are eligible for consideration under the package.

Already more than 1,000 people a week are emigrating, mainly to Australia and Canada, because they fear a loss of rights and opportunities when Hong Kong comes under Chinese rule in 1997.

Mothers waiting in line today carried children strapped to their chests. Old ladies leaned on walkers and businessmen spoke into portable phones, cutting deals as they awaited their turn.

C.B. Chan, assistant director of immigration, said the department would stay open until midnight to accommodate the crowd.

Most of those eligible for the plan don't have to formally apply because they already can prove they are British subjects, either by possessing a British-Hong Kong passport or a Hong Kong birth certificate.

Thus, thousands needlessly lined up today and the Immigration Department issued pleas to people with the necessary documents to go home. The confusion was another example that many Hong Kong residents are becoming increasingly desperate about their future.

As part of a 1984 agreement, China promised to maintain Hong Kong's freewheeling economic and social system under a program it calls "one country, two systems." But after the June 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing, many in the territory lost faith in China's promise.

by CNB