PEOPLE

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The Bwt People
capacity was 700, Later the four of hem went lunch at a dila&
dated seafood restaurant about fifteen minutes' drive h'
wharf. Tay introduced one of he Vietnamese fO Ross 'the -,
who is giving permission to people to leave Vicmarn:
ne following day, 6 Septemkr, guided by the same pilot and
now flying the Vietnamese flag, the Sdvthfl cross steamed dOwly,
for about two hours to a point b r assumed muSt have
'Ioe
to the entrance of the Syigon River, as they
man-,
from their anchorage, A fishing tra wlcr, with uniformed
and armed aoldien on board, dose by
At about tight in the morning their cargo ~PP~'R*. Ross said: '
We MW three fishing ulwlers leach Ibwt twelve meuer long] ~ppra*
from a bcnd in the river. They were p c with ~
The Eawlers were followed by a srccl harp, also pcktd with people' I
"0 armed soldien on each crab, on be Soutkm there wM
mad scramble to get on bolrd. 0°C was hurl, whole
took about an hour, Then bwlers and be barge left with the
Rws Saw WO men he took to be Vietnamese civilians four *
from one of the trawlers to the mprain3s wheelhouse On the
crot~. Later, when the ship was safely at sea, TaY the *
contained gold. In his cabin he displayed some of the Roar,
who described it as 'bundled gold leaf - a helluva lot: T~Y said *,'
agrsed price for the passage was two rae]s of gold (about $600) foi
an adult and one tael(%300) for a chiid. Ta y also
Paid the Vietnsrnest government bcmctn six and
to lave the Country, After loading, the ~0~l.m Cross*
the Vietnam flag, tunred around and nosed back towards the
"a with the pilor guiding and his launch following. saw -'
era1 patrol boats bur were not challenged. After hOun the pi'H,
left them and the freighter ailed south towards Indonesian
Sevtral days later, at a point not far from SingPPore just
Bintan Idand, the Soudent CMN pepad
sigMl wm a
Tndezvous. A yacht was waiting for them: the
11ghta The gold was tmnsferred to the in Wo brief cares carr
by ray and ROSS. Ahlquist was on the yacht to meet Thtth
men were all on the trim white maft when it to its us
anchorage the Ponggol Point batel on the arm of
120
. TmflcL ing
Johore Straits. 'No onc aied to stop us. We were just another yacht
coming back from a plesaurc cruise,' Ross said with a smile.
Later, at the Seng Bee Shipping office, the crew of the Southern
Cross was paid off. Ross said the ordinary scamen received $1370
-$1820. He, the Indonesian captain and thc Singapore radio operator
were each given $4650 by Ahlquist and a bonus of ten tuels of goId
($3000) by Tay Khtng Hong. Seng BK Shipping's sharc was 700
tae1.r ($2 10 000).
On 15 October 1978, a down-at-heel vamp steamer called the Hai
Hang ('sea breeze' in Chinese) lcft its home port, Singapore, with
an Indonesian skipper, a crew of fifteen Indonesians, and two Singaporean
passengers. The ship was an old tub of I600 tonnes, built
in 1948 to carry general txrgo. She was 75 metres long and 12 metres
wide and her single, eight-cylinder diesel engine pushed her along
at a speed :*f about nine knots - when it wsu working properly.
The IJ,li Hong was supposed to be on her last voyage. She had
been sold, it was thought, to a Honp Kong buyer for scrap.The
bruhr in the purchase deal had approached the Panamanian consulate-general
in Singapore to have the ship put on the Panamanian
register for one month from 9 October so that she would be registered
for the duration of the voyage tu Hong Kong.
On 31 October, the Hoi Hong appeared out of the blue in
Tarempa harbour in Indonesia's Anambas Islands. On 1 November
the captain radioed the UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur to say that he had
more than 2500 refugees from southern Vietnam on board and
wanted UNHCR assistance. But the ship was ordered to leave Indonesian
waters, and she sailed from Tarempa on 6 November. The
Singapore navy made sure she did not try to enter Singapore. Early
on 9 November, claiming to be crippled with engine trouble, she
slipped into the outer harbour of'hrt Klang, Malaysia's main commercial
shipping centre. There she stayed, dcgpite the best efforts
of Malaysian authorities to get rid of her.
After talking to the captain and five of he passengers, the Malaysian
police issucd a statement. The capuin had claimed, it said,
that the freighter, having developed cngine trouble on the wmy to
Hang Kong, had been boarded by refugees while anchored in the