Blog post by Dr James C. Simeon, Professor, York University
The end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, precipitated one of the largest and longest refugee crises in history. Earlier that same month in 1975, the Khmer Rouge had taken over the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. This led to the Cambodian Genocide that lasted for four years until 1979. Likewise, the Laotian Civil War ended in December 1975 with the Communist Pathet Lao seizing power and with Vietnam effectively ruling Laos for many years thereafter. The net consequence of the Communist forces taking control of these three countries – Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos – was the forced displacement of millions of people. The severe repression and horrors that were perpetrated in these three countries resulted in some three million people being forcibly displaced and, eventually, some 2.4 million people who were resettled in other countries over some three decades. This was a very dark period in these three countries’ respective histories. It was also a period of tremendous challenge to the international community and, especially, to the neighboring States that had to try to accommodate the mass influx of refugees from these countries.
The parallels to what is happening today in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman and Mediterranean Seas have been drawn by several researchers and observers. Therefore, it is reasonable to examine and to consider the history and experience of the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis and, specifically, States’ and the international community’s response to this refugee crisis to try to discern some practical lessons for the advancement of refugee protection in the world today.
At the core of the Indochinese Refugee Crisis were the protracted armed conflicts that were raging in the region and in these three countries for decades. Vietnam was actually at war between 1954 to 1975, but previous to this, from 1946 to 1954, the Viet Minh had fought against French colonial rule. Likewise, a civil war broke out in Laos, shortly after the 1954 Geneva Accords established Laos as a sovereign country. The Cambodian Civil War began in 1967 with a popular uprising that eventually led to the removal of King Norodom Sihanouk as the head of state in 1970. This led to the Communist Khmer Rouge coming to power in 1975. The genocide that followed the Khmer Rouge’s social engineering policies of “Year Zero” led to the death of an estimated 2 million people.
While millions of Southeast Asian refugees sought refuge in neighboring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Hong Kong, many of these and other countries in the region did not welcome the mass influx of arrivals. At the Conference of Indo-Chinese Refugees held in Geneva in June 1989, there was agreement on a Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) to seek to address the refugee crisis by the UNHCR applying new screening procedures for determining refugee status with those screened out being returned to Vietnam and Laos through an orderly and monitored repatriation program. Countries of first asylum and resettlement countries along with UNHCR, committed to share responsibilities for asylum seekers and guarantee asylum to all refugees. Nonetheless, it took decades to finally resolve the refugee crisis in Southeast Asia following the end of the Vietnam War, with the last refugee camp not closing until 2005, some 30 years after the end of the war.
2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of one of the world’s worst refugee crises. What lessons can be gleaned from the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis? All those in the field of refugee studies have much to learn from such past major global refugee crises and the response of States, both individually and collectively, and international organizations in responding to such crises. It is worth bearing in mind the old aphorism that, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Here are some lessons offered that can be drawn from the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis that commenced in earnest some 50 years ago following decades long protracted armed conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
1. The end of these protracted, decades long, Indo-Chinese wars resulted in authoritarian regimes coming to power in these societies. The waves of repression that followed resulted in persons wanting to flee to seek asylum abroad.
It is elementary, and patently obvious, that wars produce mass forced displacement, whether internal or external. What is often overlooked by researchers is that peace can also produce mass forced displacement. All those who opposed the Communist forces that seized power in 1975 in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were perceived as enemies of the new governments and were repressed, detained, or disposed of in the most brutal fashion.
Protracted armed conflicts and “endless wars” continue to proliferate and to prevail in the world today and are generating unprecedented numbers of those who are being forcibly displaced. The tremendous global challenge today is to achieve a “sustaining peace.”
2. The mass forced displacement that was a consequence of the end of the Indo-Chinese wars produced millions of refugees seeking asylum abroad. Those who were fortunate enough to arrive in a neighboring country remained in refugee camps, and in some cases for years on end, before being resettled or repatriated to their country of nationality.
Many of those who fled Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam took ocean routes to neighboring countries and often faced harrowing hardships en route to their countries of asylum, including, storms, hunger and thirst, theft, rape, assault, and death at the hands of pirates, and ‘push backs’ by the authorities at the countries of destination. Many lost their lives attempting to travel to their countries of putative refuge. If they managed to make it to a refugee camp in their country of first asylum then it could be years before they could be possibly resettled. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action some who were not determined to be refugees were repatriated to their countries of nationality.
The numbers of those who perish at sea while fleeing to seek refuge abroad continues today both in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas and the Bay of Bengal. The protracted refugee situation also prevails today, with thousands of refugees stuck in refugee camps for decades.
3. The Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis lasted for decades and although individual States played their part in resettling thousands of these refugees it was not until nearly a decade and a half later (some 14 years to be precise) that the international community came together to negotiate a Comprehensive Plan of Action. Further, it was some 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War that the last group of refugees were resettled and the refugee camp was closed.
Clearly, a number of countries played a critical role in helping to resettle the Indo-Chinese refugees, particularly during one of the peaks of the crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For example, Canada resettled some 60,000 Indo-Chinese refugees in 1979-1980, primarily through its Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. In fact, Canada resettled some 200,000 Indo-Chinese refugees alone from 1978 into the 1980s. But, while the refugee flows from this region continued, many were stuck in refugee camps for years waiting and hoping to be resettled. Indeed, it took the international community some 14 years after the refugee crisis began before it could negotiate the CPA. A monumental refugee crisis of this proportion took some three decades to resolve which suggests that refugee crises of this magnitude take decades to address and to resolve and, in the end, they can only be resolved through concerted collective international consensus and agreement.
The major refugee producing countries today include Afghanistan; Syria; Venezuela; Ukraine; and Sudan. These five countries alone account for 73 percent of the world’s refugees. All are wracked by protracted wars and/or economic, political, and social upheavals. Only a concerted collective international consensus and agreement can hope to end these wars and the resulting mass production of the world’s refugees.
4. The United Nations and the UNHCR played a key leadership role, along with the refugee producing countries and several resettlement countries working together, to resolve the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis over some three decades.
Without the collaborative and determinative efforts and leadership of the United Nations and the UNHCR, and the other migration agencies of the UN, as well as a number of resettlement countries such as France, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and others, it is highly improbable that the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis would have been resolved. If nothing else, this requires diplomatic tenacity, patience, and a solid commitment to the realization of fundamental human rights, and, especially, the essential human right to be able to seek asylum. But, as already noted, this takes decades, and not years, to accomplish.
While the United Nations and the UNHCR are trying to cope with the world’s ever escalating refugee crises today, what is also necessary is the full participation of refugee producing and resettlement States. While the Global Compacts are essential forums for the participation of the resettlement States, more concentrated effort is essential to address each of the refugee crises that are emanating from the five top refugee producing countries noted above. These countries’ participation is essential.
5. International law, and more precisely, international refugee law was a necessary underpinning and essential framework to achieving the level of humanitarian assistance to those who were fleeing persecution, from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, during the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis. Without the universal acceptance of the principle of non-refoulement in international law and the protection afforded under international refugee law, it would have been impossible to have addressed the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis or other refugee issues and concerns either before or since. Consequently, international refugee law is an essential component to the protection of refugees since the establishment of the modern international refugee protection regime.
While the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis was undoubtedly a “man-made” disaster of enormous proportions, it was only possible to resolve given the establishment of the modern international refugee protection regime with the negotiations and accession of States to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and all the other international refugee rights instruments that have been ratified and acceded to since. It is relevant and significant not to overlook this essential fact when considering how best to resolve today’s refugee situations and crises.
New forced displacement challenges are emerging such as those persons who are being displaced due to climate change that will require new international instruments and mechanisms to address these new forced displacement challenges. States and international organizations must be open to negotiating new treaties and other international mechanisms to deal with these new forced displacement challenges.
As the Indo-Chinese Refugee Crisis marks its 50th anniversary in 2025, those who are working in the field of refugee law and practice should take the time to consider what pragmatic lessons can be learned from one of the longest and largest refugee crises in history. From some practical lessons that are drawn here it is evident that wars produce mass forced displacement but when peace is achieved it too can generate mass forced displacement. Those who flee their countries of persecution often face great hardships and even death en route to their countries of refuge. Refugee crises will likely take decades to resolve. And it could take the international community decades before it responds with a comprehensive plan of action to address ongoing refugee crises. In the end, it takes leadership on the part of the UN and its refugee protection agencies, such as UNHCR, in cooperation and collaboration with both refugee producing as well as resettlement States working in unison to tackle a refugee crisis. And, finally, we must always foreground the necessity of international law and, specifically, international refugee law, in providing the parameters for finding the appropriate ways and means for resolving refugee crises, irrespective of their magnitude or temporal dimensions. And we must be ever open to its continuous evolution and development to meet today’s emerging and ongoing forced displacement challenges.
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