Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response

"This book will be valuable as reference, but it is also a gripping tale, well told, full of drama and the human element," Kathleen Newland said in her introductory remarks. Terms of Refuge gives a detailed and nuanced account of the more than three million Laotians, Cambodians and Vietnamese who were uprooted in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Extensive reviews of documentation and valuable interviews with refugees and others who were closely involved underpin Robinson’s analysis of the dilemmas that faced all organizations working on the crisis.

Robinson is an old-timer on the subject of Indochina. He began work on the region in 1979 at the Indochinese Refugee Action Center (now SEARAC). He worked at the Consortium at Phanat Nikhom, Thailand for several years beginning in 1982 before returning to Washington as a senior policy analyst at the US Committee for Refugees. Robinson returned to Thailand in 1992 with a grant from the MacArthur Foundation as a senior fellow at the Asian Research Center of Chulalongkorn, where he examined in depth the region’s repatriation process. He began work on Terms of Refuge in 1995, when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees asked Robinson to write a definitive history of the Indochinese refugee experience.

Newland said she looked forward to a discussion of some of the conclusions to be drawn from Indochina’s long period of crisis, and congratulated Robinson on his "extraordinary efforts."

W. Courtland Robinson, Associate, Johns Hopkins Center for Refugee and Disaster Studies

Robinson recalled sensing, on his first day of work at the Indochina Refugee Action Center, that "This was a critical moment in history, for the refugee program, for the region and for US foreign policy. I feel a sense of gratitude and humility at having been a part of this moment. This book is one effort -- and I hope there are many others -- to write what I hope will be an understanding of this exodus and international response, but not the last word."

In support of his study, UNHCR gave Robinson full access to its records and files, as well as a substantial transportation budget, but it did not ask for any editorial control. Robinson said that during his research he discovered that many documents had been misplaced. He wondered about records of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and expressed his hope that "international organizations will keep a better record of these events, since this primary data is so critical," and more reliable than human recollection.

Robinson said he wanted to take the audience "back in time" to a few defining moments in the span of the Indochinese refugee crisis.

When UNHCR opened its first regional branch office in Hanoi in 1974, its intention was to stake a claim as the agency to assist in the return and reintegration of war. While UNHCR viewed the problems as the aftermath of war, the United States insisted that it was an exodus of people fearing persecution by the Communist government, and subject to the agreements of the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol. According to Robinson, this tension between UNHCR and the US was never fully resolved.

In 1975, the violence that broke out in Guam as several hundred Vietnamese protesters demanded the right to return to Vietnam "pointed out, in an ominous way, the prospects of violence in the camps, and left images that UNHCR was, in some fundamental respects, at war with its clients," said Robinson.

The pushback to sea of boat people by the Malaysian navy in 1974 also left an important legacy as "local organizations came to the forefront and got involved in dramatic ways." Robinson reminded the audience of the importance of local capacity building, which he views as insufficient then and now.

"In September 1978, the huge freighter, Southern Cross, followed by the High Hong, entered Phillipine waters. Its refugee passengers sat sweltering in the harbor for weeks, until their situation was ultimately resolved through the offer of third-country resettlement for the entire boatload," said Robinson. An UNHCR cable that November linked policy to resettlement, so that UNHCR considered all fleeing Indochinese to be prima facie entitled to refugee status. If boatloads of refugees were permitted to land, they were guaranteed third-country resettlement. Robinson said that although this was a necessary solution at the time, it presaged problems that ultimately arose in the suspicion that people fled not to find asylum but to emigrate to a third country. Still, Robinson maintained that the question of automatic refugee status being a push or pull factor "is much too simplistic."

The pushback of 42,000 Cambodians from the Thai border in June 1979 illustrates the difficulty of truth in numbers. "HCR only managed a belated expression of ‘deep concern’ at what was the largest forced repatriation in history. In the files of relief organizations working at the border at the time, the death toll was estimated to be several thousand," Robinson explained. On the other hand, "by the time news of the pushback hit the U.S., that number was alleged to be 30, 000 to 40,000 – meaning that everyone who was sent back died." The tension between accuracy and the desire to dramatize a horrific situation shows that, "It is difficult for advocates to try to disentangle reality from rhetoric," said Robinson, adding that this point continues to haunt refugee programs.

The January 1988 pushback by Thailand of a boatload of Vietnamese refugees into international waters forced the international community to recognize the need for a new set of agreements, and signaled that it was no longer tenable to continue existing resettlement strategies. According to Robinson, "a new agreement took shape in a Comprehensive Plan of Action which preserved the commitment of asylum but broke the prima facie rule" by requiring interviews with local officers to determine refugee status under the terms of the Protocol. If asylum seekers did not meet these terms, they were simply migrants who became subject to deportation or nonvoluntary return. This represented a fundamental change in the international response. Contrary to the expectation of its many critics, the CPA actually preserved and expanded resettlement opportunities. More refugees were resettled in the six years following than in the six years prior to the new agreements.

All told, "nearly two million people were successfully resettled all over the world," said Robinson. Third-country resettlement reached its peak during the period of 1979-1980, when it was available to one in 20 refugees worldwide. Today, Robinson estimates, that ratio is one in 500. At the time, it was a critical solution; today attitudes toward resettlement have shifted. "We used to sense that we had overspent and debased the coin of resettlement, that it had lost its value and proper place in the triptych of durable solutions… While that view is important and credible, we are now shifting back again and realizing just how important resettlement was… Resettlement in many ways did its job," said Robinson.

Robinson said he had asked High Commissioner Sadako Ogata what UNHCR had learned about repatriation from the Indochinese experience. "Her answer was, ‘it’s very difficult.’ Although repatriation is seen as the real answer for people (to get them home again), it is never that easy. Indochina opened everyone’s eyes to how complex repatriation can be – it takes more than a hand shake and a bag of rice to assure that it’s a durable solution and not just a tactic of political expediency," said Robinson.

In closing, Robinson refuted the use of a billiard ball analogy in depictions of refugees – which implies that they are devoid of inner direction and their paths are determined by forces outside their control. "The Indochinese showed us that refugee patterns are complex movements of volition and choice," said Robinson. "Decisions made and actions taken represent deliberate efforts to successfully flee. We helped many people to achieve that deeply desired end."

Discussion

Morton Abramowitz of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was US Ambassador to Thailand during much of the Indochinese refugee crisis, questioned Robinson’s portrayal of UNHCR as the motivating force behind the international response to the Indochinese refugee crisis. In his view, it was the United States and not UNHCR that acted as a leading force to mobilize the international community, sometimes even despite UNHCR’s opposition. "UNHCR’s role was in trying to codify, not in providing the impetus to try to deal with the problem," said Abramowitz. He suggested that Robinson had missed "the essence of what happened by focusing on UNHCR."

Professor Charles Keely of Georgetown University pointed out that Robinson neglected to mention the Cold War in his remarks, and wondered if he touched on them in his book. How did the Cold War shape the Indochinese experience, particularly considering the role of US leadership? Keely suggested that, in fact, there may have been two refugee regimes at the time: one that was anti-Communist and promoted resettlement, and a second for "third-world" settings without Communist involvement, which was focused on repatriation.

Robinson responded by saying that while his book did not dwell on the Cold War’s influence, it established that context by discussing responses based on differing perceptions of the region. For example, UNHCR held a different view of the situation than did the US.

Abramowitz joined the conversation by commenting on the variety of motivations. "The US didn’t have to take in refugees to demonstrate the belief that the Indochinese were run by despotic governments. There was a certain amount of guilt, as well. But I refuse to say it was not mostly a humanitarian commitment," said Abramowitz. He also posed the rhetorical question of how to persuade host countries in the region to uphold and protect first asylum.

Dawn Calabia of UNHCR’s Washington office agreed with Abramowitz that without the commitment of the US, the international response could not have been sustained. She pointed to a combination of features in which some acted on Cold War motivations and others on humanitarianism. She recalled being at a Carnegie Endowment event in 1980, where panelists concluded that the Indochinese refugee flow must stop.

Kathleen Newland sought to connect these issues with the current refugee regime, noting the ethnic character of the bulk of expulsions from Vietnam in the late 1970s. "This was ethnic cleansing," she said. "It was perhaps the first time the international community confronted it so overtly. But did it have a lasting effect on the way the US and UNHCR look at departures?"

Robinson phrased the question another way: Were it to happen all over again, would we have a Dayton agreement insisting that refugees be allowed to go back to their countries of origin? "No," he concluded, "in many ways, we are more attuned now to the idea that ethnic minorities are the earliest and easiest victims to a conflict."

Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response by W. Courtland Robinson (Zed Books, London, 1998, distributed by St. Martin’s Press) will be available in bookstores on November 23.