Indochinese Refugees: Impact on ASEAN and U.S. Policy

Abstract

At the July 1979 Geneva conference on Indochinese refugees, the Government of Vietnam (SRV) agreed to discourage the outflow of Vietnamese refugees. Since then, the big ships carrying Vietnamese refugees with exit-permits have ceased coming, but there is still a sub stantial outflow of clandestine departures ? over 50,000 arrived in first asylum areas in Asia in January-August 1980. There is also a continuous outflow from Laos. The monthly average of about 5,000 arriving in refugee camps in Thailand during 1978/79 was somewhat higher in 1980. As for the Khmer, the large numbers massing on the Thai-Kampuchean border in late 1979 had by mid-1980 been greatly reduced. Future prospects, however, remain uncertain as long as there is no solution to the conflict in Kampuchea. The Indochinese refugee problem, in other words, remains a serious one. The purpose of this paper is to consider recent develop ments in (1) flow trends in the Indochinese refugee movement, (2) the impact on the main first asylum countries in Southeast Asia, and (3) the policies of the United States, which has been the largest reci pient of refugees resettled from first asylum camps in the ASEAN countries.