OCTOBER 2016

Managing the “Boat People” Crisis:The Comprehensive Plan of Actionfor Indochinese Refugees

DESPERATE MIGRATION SERIES NO. 2

ALEXANDER CASELLA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALEXANDER CASELLA is a writer for Asia Times and a

consultant on issues related to migration. He worked as an

independent journalist covering the Vietnam War from

1965 to 1975. He worked for the UN Refugee Agency from

1975 to 1996, serving in Hanoi, Geneva, Beirut, and

Bangkok.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IPI owes a debt of gratitude to its many donors for their

generous support.

Cover Photo: A thirty-five-foot fishing

boat approaches a US navy ship 350

miles northeast of Cam Ranh Bay,

Vietnam, after eight days at sea, May

15, 1984. US Department of the Navy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this

paper represent those of the author

and not necessarily those of the

International Peace institute. IPI

welcomes consideration of a wide

range of perspectives in the pursuit of

a well-informed debate on critical

policies and issues in international

affairs.

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Adam Lupel, Vice President

Albert Trithart, Assistant Editor

Madeline Brennan, Assistant ProductionEditor

Suggested Citation:

Alexander Casella, “Managing the ‘Boat

People’ Crisis: The Comprehensive Plan

of Action for Indochinese Refugees,”

New York: International Peace Institute,

October 2016.

© by International Peace Institute, 2016

All Rights Reserved

www.ipinst.org

CONTENTS

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Origins of the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

International Response to the New Crisis . . . . . . . . . 3

AN INDIVIDUAL-LED, FIELD-DRIVENINITIATIVE

ADOPTING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLANOF ACTION

FOUNDATIONS OF THE CPA

REACTIONS TO THE PLAN

Implementing the Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

PUTTING THE PROCEDURES IN MOTION

THE MASS INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

THE END OF THE EXODUS—AND OF THE COLD WAR

THE PROBLEM OF REPATRIATION

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1

Executive Summary

Spanning a period of twenty-one years, theVietnamese “boat people” exodus was the lastmajor refugee crisis of the Cold War. It started inthe spring of 1975 after the fall of Saigon andresumed in 1978, as tens of thousands ofVietnamese took to sea, headed for Hong Kong orthe countries of Southeast Asia. The internationalresponse agreed on in Geneva in 1979 was in linewith Western Cold War values—all Vietnamesefleeing the communist regime were automaticallyrecognized as refugees and resettled in the West—but by 1988 it had begun to unravel. The newinternational response took the form of theComprehensive Plan of Action for IndochineseRefugees (CPA), which was in place from 1989 to1996.The CPA was revolutionary in two ways. First, it

was comprehensive, made up of five mutuallysupporting components: (1) screening for refugeestatus, (2) resettlement of those granted refugeestatus, (3) repatriation of those denied refugeestatus, (4) streamlining of a program allowingpeople to apply for refugee status from Vietnam,and (5) a mass campaign to inform Vietnamese ofthe CPA’s provisions. Second, its individualcomponents were predicated on two fundamentalrights: the right of Vietnamese boat people to landand their right to be processed for refugee status.As a result, the CPA both saved lives and markedthe transition from blanket recognition of refugeestatus to individual status determination—all in aregion whose countries had not ratified the RefugeeConvention.While all refugee situations are different, the

CPA provides lessons that could extend beyond theIndochinese refugee crisis:1. Decisive action sometimes depends on initia-

tives undertaken by enterprising individuals inthe field. Plans to address the refugee crisis inIndochina only progressed due to individualinitiative.

2. New approaches to refugee crises are bound tobe controversial. The NGO community was notattuned to the CPA’s wholesale rethinking of therefugee crisis and thus largely opposed it.

3. Comprehensive solutions require the commit-ment and involvement of the country of origin.

It was only once Vietnam became involved thata solution to the crisis became possible.

4. UN crisis response can be most effective when asingle agency is in the lead. The CPA benefitedfrom UNHCR being the only agency substan-tively involved in its implementation.

5. Countries’ involvement in responding torefugee crises does not necessarily translate intothem adopting refugee law. Most of thecountries of Southeast Asia continued to rejectthe Refugee Convention.

6. Refugees and migrants are easy victims ofrumors and disinformation. One of the reasonsthe CPA was successful was that a massinformation campaign let Vietnamese peopleknow it existed.

7. Durable solutions must address both refugeesand migrants. Probably the main achievementof the CPA was to bridge the asylum-migrationconundrum and replace it, in fact if not inwords, with a solution to population movementin general.

Introduction

While all asylum and migration crises have theirown specific characteristics, they share onecommon principle: the preferred solution is forpeople to voluntarily return to their homecountries, provided that the conditions leading tothe exodus no longer prevail. In parallel, thisrequires establishing a system of asylum forrefugees and of mandatory return for those notentitled to refugee status. Establishing such asystem requires the involvement of the country oforigin, where conditions must emerge to makesuch a solution possible.The Comprehensive Plan of Action for

Indochinese Refugees (CPA), which was in placefrom 1989 to 1996, was a practical implementationof this approach to address Vietnam’s “boatpeople” crisis. Twenty years after the end of thisagreement, this report considers what lessons couldbe learned from the CPA, some of which could berelevant to today’s migration crises, including themovement of people from Africa and the MiddleEast to Europe. In Vietnam, conceiving the CPArequired initiative, imagination, some daring, and,perhaps most importantly of all, involvement of the

2 Alexander Casella

country of origin. It also benefited from the shift inexternal conditions resulting from the end of theCold War. All of these elements seem lacking fromresponses to today’s migration crises.1

Origins of the Crisis

Spanning a period of twenty-one years, theVietnamese “boat people” exodus was the lastmajor refugee crisis of the Cold War. It started inthe spring of 1975, when some 140,000 Vietnamesewere evacuated from Saigon by the United States inthe weeks before the city fell to North Vietnam.After a hiatus of about two years, the exodusresumed in 1978, as tens of thousands ofVietnamese took to sea, headed for Hong Kong orthe countries of Southeast Asia.While in theory the international response to this

exodus could have drawn upon lessons learnedfrom previous Cold War refugee crises, the refugeecrisis in Indochina presented new challenges thatthe international community had never previouslyencountered. Refugee crises had traditionally been regional

phenomena that were addressed through regionalsolutions. By and large, refugees did not overflowtheir own geographic areas. African refugees fled toneighboring African countries, Hungarian andCzech refugees were granted asylum by otherWestern countries, and Palestinians were housedin camps in the Middle East. In Asia, when theCommunists came to power in China in 1949,many members of the Kuomintang found asylumin Taiwan. Likewise, when Vietnam was divided in1954, almost 1 million North Vietnamese soughtrefuge in South Vietnam rather than live under acommunist regime. No such solution proved available to Vietnam’s

boat people. Indeed, with the exception of China,which provided asylum to some 260,000Vietnamese of Chinese origin, all the countries ofSoutheast Asia adamantly refused to grantpermanent asylum to any Vietnamese boat person.Moreover, none of the countries of the Associationof Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had signed

the 1951 Refugee Convention.2 This, along with theabsence of a territorial solution, deprived theVietnamese boat people of the right to asylum,making resettlement in Western countries the onlypossible outcome.While the 1951 Refugee Convention provides a

clear definition of the term “refugee” and, as such,a legal basis for protection claims, individualrefugee determination procedures were theexception rather than the rule. As most people werefleeing from the East to the West, and withcommunist countries imposing penalties for illegaldeparture so severe that they amounted to persecu-tion, Western countries considered simply fleeingfrom a communist regime as sufficient grounds towarrant refugee status. And so, it was formallyagreed that all Vietnamese boat people would beautomatically recognized as refugees and resettledin the only countries that would accept them—Western countries. This solution was formally adopted at the

International Conference on Indochinese Refugeesin July 1979. At the time, it was the only approachthat was coherent both with reality and with thevalues that the West stood for in the Cold War.Ultimately, however, it proved to be a Westernsolution in an Asian context; after having initiallyserved its purpose, it became part of the problem.By 1988, the agreement reached in Geneva had

begun to unravel. Considering that all of thecountries of the region (with the exception ofChina) were adamant in their refusal to provideasylum to any Vietnamese arriving by boat, thesystem hinged on resettlement in Westerncountries. This was the nonnegotiable precondi-tion for allowing the Vietnamese boat arrivals toland.In parallel to the 1979 conference in Geneva, the

UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had signed anagreement with the Vietnamese authorities settingup an Orderly Departure Program (ODP). TheODP was to enable qualifying Vietnamese to leavethe country legally. It was expected to provide acredible alternative to illegal departure and thus to

1 Sources for this report include interviews with two of the four originators of the CPA conducted in June and July 2016, documents shared by these interviewees,and the author’s personal notes. Figures cited are from internal UN documents.

2 Of the destination countries for the Vietnamese boat people, none except China had signed the Refugee Convention in 1979. Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,Singapore, and Thailand have still not ratified the Refugee Convention, while the Philippines ratified it in 1984. While the UK was a signatory to the RefugeeConvention, the convention did not apply to the British territory of Hong Kong.

MANAGING THE “BOAT PEOPLE” CRISIS 3

help reduce the number of people leaving by boat.The ODP was predicated on the existence of

three lists: List A, to be set up by the Vietnameseauthorities, included people with exit permits. ListB included Vietnamese for whom foreign countrieswere willing to provide visas. List C includedpeople who figured on both Lists A and B and whocould thus leave legally. As initially conceived, theODP never worked. Indeed, Hanoi perceived it asno more than a means of getting rid of Saigon’sChinese community. Of the 10,000 names initiallysubmitted on List A, practically all were Chinese,and practically none were qualified to figure on ListB, which excluded them from List C.3As a result, bythe mid-1980s, with ODP departures few and farbetween, Vietnamese who felt compelled to leaveVietnam had no alternative but to leave by boat.At the same time, while the exodus endured,

resettlement from Southeast Asia and Hong Konghad begun to erode. Little by little, a residualcaseload of “long-stayers” who no Western govern-ment was willing to take built up in the camps.These included North Vietnamese whosedeparture had been in no way related to thesituation prevailing in South Vietnam. Westerngovernments also started cutting down on theirresettlement quotas for Vietnamese boat people,arguing that, ten years after the end of the VietnamWar, the nature of the caseload had changed andthey had other priorities.With the residual caseload gradually building

and resettlement quotas starting to shrink,Southeast Asian countries grew concerned, partic-ularly as the ratio of arrivals to departures began tochange. Between 1980 and 1986, the yearly numberof resettled boat people exceeded the number ofnew arrivals. Then, in 1988, the number of newarrivals almost doubled in comparison to theprevious year. Resettlement quotas, however, didnot follow suit.Confronted with the reality of a burgeoning

caseload of non-settled boat people, in order tocurb the inflow, countries resorted to the policythat was easiest to implement: pushbacks. There isno estimate of the number who drowned as a resultof these policies. By mid-1988, Southeast Asia was

on the verge of a new humanitarian catastrophe.

International Response tothe New Crisis

AN INDIVIDUAL-LED, FIELD-DRIVENINITIATIVE

As the number of pushbacks grew, threatening toundermine the strategy agreed on in 1979, Westerndiplomats in Bangkok looked on with increasinganxiety. In an attempt to address the issue, the FordFoundation, in the wake of a series of meetings ofthe Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) in the Thai capital, decided to organize aseminar in the Thai district of Cha-Am on May 25,1988, on the theme of the Vietnamese boat people.Labeling the meeting as “informal” and claimingthat participation was solely on a personal basis, theFord Foundation ensured that the exchange wouldbe frank and to the point. It was. What emergedwas a recognition that first asylum for Vietnamesewas hanging in the balance. Without new solutions,such as the restructuring of the internationalarrangements for asylum, Southeast Asiancountries were forced to unilaterally take drasticsteps to prevent new boat arrivals.The Cha-Am seminar provided the opportunity

for the meeting of minds of four key participants indiscussions on the Indochinese refugee situation:Allan Jury, deputy counselor at the US mission inBangkok; Gervais Appave, his Australian counter-part; Pierre Jambor, the UNHCR representative inBangkok; and Kasit Piromya, director of theDepartment of International Organizations at theThai Foreign Ministry.4 Subsequent to the Cha-Ammeeting, this quartet met regularly, albeitinformally, and soon concluded that the onlysolution to the coming crisis was to put in place acomprehensive plan. This plan would includescreening refugees, returning to Vietnam thosewho did not qualify for refugee status, andproviding long-term resettlement for those whodid, while also expanding the ODP. They saw sucha plan as culminating in a new internationalconference on refugees from Indochina, followingthe model of the 1979 conference.

3 Oral source from the UN Refugee Agency.4 Draft cable report from the US Embassy in Bangkok, May 18, 1988.

4 Alexander Casella

On June 2nd, Jury sent an official letter to Jamborsuggesting that UNHCR take the lead in organizinga meeting in Bangkok with local representatives ofmajor Western countries to decide on how toproceed with the proposal. Accompanying Jury’sletter was an informal draft agenda containing aparagraph proposing “refugee screening”—a boldsuggestion coming from a US diplomat. Up untilthis point, the presumption was that all Vietnameseboat people were refugees fleeing persecution.Questioning this presumption could have hadmajor political repercussions for Vietnam in theway the country was perceived both regionally andinternationally.While the quartet, which had been expanded to

include representatives of Australia, Canada,France, and the EU, started to work on a text basedon Jury’s proposals, it became evident that nothingwould be achieved if Hanoi were not brought intothe picture. However, given the prevailing politicalclimate, no government was willing to extend aninvitation to the Vietnamese. Instead, theyexpected UNHCR to do so. However, the highcommissioner rejected the proposal, considering ittoo political. It was not until the director of the USBureau for Refugee Programs, AmbassadorJonathan Moore, informed the commissioner thathe fully supported the initiative that Jamborreceived approval to proceed at his own risk.Jambor then requested the UNHCR representa-

tive in Hanoi to invite a Vietnamese delegation tocome to Bangkok to take part in the next round ofdeliberations organized by the quartet.Simultaneously, and acting on their own initiative,Jury and Appave informed the Vietnameseambassador in Bangkok that the purpose of theinvitation was not to embarrass or censure theVietnamese, but rather to involve them in aconstructive process seeking to bring to anhonorable end the boat people exodus. WhileHanoi never replied to the invitation, several weekslater, the Vietnamese ambassador in Bangkok,accompanied by a vice minister, arrivedunannounced at the New Imperial Hotel where thegroup was holding one of its regular meetings.What followed over the next several months was

an unofficial drafting process from which emergedthe Comprehensive Plan of Action for IndochineseRefugees (CPA).

ADOPTING THE COMPREHENSIVEPLAN OF ACTION

The CPA was revolutionary in two ways. First, itwas comprehensive, made up of mutuallysupporting components that all culminated in asolution. Second, its individual components werepredicated on two fundamental rights: the right ofVietnamese boat people to land and their right tobe processed for refugee status. As a result, the CPAboth saved lives and marked the transition fromblanket recognition of refugee status to individualstatus determination. Moreover, it did this in anenvironment where refugee law was nonexistent,given that almost none of the countries of theregion had ratified the Refugee Convention. In practical terms, this meant that boat people

who landed after a given cutoff date would nolonger be automatically recognized as refugees butwould be classified as asylum seekers. They wouldthen be subject to an individual refugee statusdetermination procedure, and those recognized asrefugees would be resettled. Those not qualifyingfor refugee status would be repatriated, voluntarilyor forcibly, under an amnesty program monitoredby UNHCR that provided that they would not beprosecuted for illegal departure. In parallel, theODP would be widely expanded to provide arealistic alternative to departure by boat for thosewho qualified.By October, the drafting process, which was still

informal, had produced a basic document thatreflected a general consensus and provided aframework from which a more official plan couldemerge. Toward this end, in October, the govern-ment of Malaysia called for a “pre-meeting” inKuala Lumpur, inviting all concerned governmentsto attend in an official capacity.Thus, while the original text had been conceived

by representatives in Bangkok, the “pre-confer-ence” sought to involve the capitals. UNHCRheadquarters also developed its own draft CPA,which Ambassador Kasit publicly tore up at theopening of the meeting, declaring that the textproduced in Bangkok was the only one to work on.Ultimately, the Bangkok-produced text wasadopted with a single modification requested by theVietnamese: on the issue of returning those whowere denied refugee status, the word “must” wasreplaced by “should.” Having been endorsed (albeit

MANAGING THE “BOAT PEOPLE” CRISIS 5

informally) by the Kuala Lumpur “pre-confer-ence,” the draft penned in Bangkok was nowconfirmed as the founding document of the CPA.Polishing and promoting it fell to UNHCR’s Asiabureau, and in March 1989 the CPA was finalizedin Kuala Lumpur.FOUNDATIONS OF THE CPA

While the CPA essentially served as a regionaldocument, the fact that it provided for extra-regional resettlement gave it an internationaldimension—with a corresponding internationalresponsibility—that the countries of ASEANwished to emphasize. The UN Secretariat, however,was lukewarm about getting involved in theprocess. To circumvent this reluctance, ASEANprevailed on the UN General Assembly to adopt aresolution formally requesting UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar to convene anInternational Conference on Indo-ChineseRefugees to adopt the CPA.5 The conference,attended by seventy-five states, was duly convenedin Geneva from June 13 to 14, 1989. It adopted theCPA and created a steering committee, based inSoutheast Asia, which would regularly meet toreview implementation.6

The CPA included five mutually supportivecomponents:1. It provided that all new arrivals would be

screened for refugee status. This would beundertaken by officers from the countries offirst asylum, trained and supervised byUNHCR. While the cases of those “screened in”as refugees were generally accepted, all“screened out” cases would be reviewed byUNHCR, which retained the authority to grantrefugee status to any boat person independentlyof the decision of the screening officers.

2. All those granted refugee status would beautomatically entitled to resettlement on thebasis of the procedures currently in place.

3. All those denied refugee status would have toreturn to Vietnam. Return would preferably bevoluntary, but forcible return was not excluded,

on the understanding that it would not entailbodily harm. In addition, Hanoi and UNHCRhad signed a memorandum of understanding inDecember 1988, which specified that thereturnees would not be subject to the penaltiesimposed by Vietnamese law for illegaldeparture. This guarantee was to be monitoredby UNHCR, which would also provide thereturnees with a reintegration allowance.

4. The ODP was to be streamlined to bolsterintergovernmental collaboration afforded underthe CPA. Initially it had been managed byUNHCR and was subject to continued obstruc-tion by Vietnamese authorities. Under the CPA,rather than remaining a bone of contentionbetween Hanoi and Washington, it became thefirst cooperative venture between the twogovernments. Its operation was ultimately takenover by the International Organization forMigration (IOM).

5. There would be a “mass information” campaignin Vietnam to ensure that potential boat peoplewould be aware of the CPA’s provisions.The rationale for the creation and delivery of an

information campaign was that Vietnamese peopleshould be informed that the situation had changedand that resettlement from countries of first asylumwas no longer automatic; it was now subject to thegranting of refugee status, for which many wouldnot qualify. Those who did not qualify would bereturned to Vietnam, while those who did qualifycould leave through the ODP rather than on boats.Ultimately, the information campaign sought toenable potential boat people to make an educateddecision about leaving, thereby encouraging themnot to leave in the first place. It was, in other words,deterrence through information.The concept had never been tried before, and

there was no guarantee of success. But when it hadbeen raised informally in Hanoi, the authoritieshad been intrigued and promised the full supportof the Vietnamese state media, on theunderstanding that UNHCR would take the leadand pay the costs.

5 The foreign ministers of the countries of ASEAN issued a Joint Statement on Indo-Chinese Refugees on July 4, 1988. This led to General Assembly Resolution43/119 (December 8, 1988), UN Doc. A/RES/43/119.

6 See UN General Assembly, Declaration and Comprehensive Plan of Action of the International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/44/523, September 22, 1989.

6 Alexander Casella

REACTIONS TO THE PLAN

The signing of the CPA was not met withwidespread support—far from it. While govern-ments were relieved that a contentious issue hadbeen brought under control, at least in the shortterm, the reaction outside of governments was acombination of concern, disbelief, and outrighthostility.Within UNHCR, lawyers had always looked

askance at the ODP. For them, refugees were, bydefinition, individuals outside their home country,from which they had fled to escape persecution.For an agency whose task it was to protect refugeesto operate inside a refugee-producing country inorder to help people leave legally—which couldimply that they were not persecuted and thus notrefugees—went against the grain. They also foundit objectionable that screening for refugee statuscould be undertaken in and by countries that werenot signatories to and did not adhere to the princi-ples underpinning the UN Refugee Convention.Although UNHCR retained the right to overseeevery decision, thus guaranteeing that no genuinerefugee would be left unidentified, this oversightwas seen as a technicality. And while this techni-cality ensured that asylum would be preserved,UNHCR’s objection was one of principle.Among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),

hostility toward the CPA was widespread. ManyNGO staff working in camps for displacedVietnamese had developed personal attachments tothe Vietnamese there and were profoundlydisturbed by the idea that, if denied refugee status,they ran the risk of being forcefully returned toVietnam.Moreover, many were distressed by the fact that

return was envisaged in the CPA at all, even if itwere “voluntary.” During the Cold War, theconcept of “refugee” was predicated on the beliefthat the communist regimes were so abhorrent thatthe simple fact of having left illegally entitled aperson to refugee status. This was the principle thathad been applied in Europe and in Vietnam untilthe adoption of the CPA.For the many tens of thousands of Americans

who had fought or worked in Vietnam during the

war, the idea of return was also not easy to accept.It was even more difficult to accept for the largenumber of Vietnamese living in the United Stateswho had benefited from an across-the-boardresettlement policy that would now be denied totheir relatives. Last but not least, the human rights and advocacy

community, which had just emerged on theinternational scene, proved unsparing in itscensure of both the screening system and thereturn policy.While these fountainheads of dissent were not

enough to derail the CPA, anti-CPA efforts—oftenwell-meaning but generally based on unsubstanti-ated claims about the persecution faced by returnedVietnamese—contributed to politicizing the issuein American politics. This, in turn, made the CPA’simplementation more difficult and its closure moreprotracted.7

Implementing the Plan

PUTTING THE PROCEDURES INMOTION

The first upshot of the adoption of the CPA wasthat pushbacks came to an immediate stop. Withthe ASEAN countries now assured that all boatpeople who landed on their shores would either beresettled or repatriated, deterring them fromlanding became unnecessary, and countless liveswere no doubt saved.It then fell to UNHCR to set up a comprehensive

screening system to identify who among the boatpeople was entitled to refugee status. This entailedhiring and training lawyers from the countries offirst asylum who, under UNHCR supervision,would adjudicate cases. It also put in place appealsprocedures, with UNHCR retaining the right tohave the final say in each case.However, for many of the newly arrived

Vietnamese boat people, the screening processproved confusing. It was difficult to comprehendthat friends or relatives who had arrived incountries of first asylum just weeks or days before,were automatically entitled to resettlement whilethey were not. Corruption also became a problem.

7 For example, US Representatives Christopher Smith and Robert Dornan led an attack on the CPA using arguments fed to them by certain elements of the USVietnamese community. For an example of unintended consequences of this politicization, see Charles P. Wallace, “Rep. Dornan Blamed for a New Flood of ‘BoatPeople,’” LA Times, May 14, 1991.

MANAGING THE “BOAT PEOPLE” CRISIS 7

Although the issue was never raised in public, therewere cases of boat people offering to pay screeningofficers to grant them refugee status with moneyreceived from relatives who had already beenresettled in Western countries. Ultimately,UNHCR chose to address corruption on a case-by-case basis on the principle that the lesser evil was toerr on the side of generosity, and granting a fewpeople refugee status for the wrong reasons waspreferable to wrongly denying refugee status toeven one person.THE MASS INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

While UNHCR put in place the complex adminis-trative mechanism for dealing with the screeningprocess and its various appeal mechanisms, theexodus continued. UNHCR therefore decided tostart the mass information campaign. Toimplement the campaign, UNHCR created aposition of “special adviser” in Bangkok, and thejob was assigned to the staff member who hadconceived the idea for the project. The time hadcome to give substance, if substance there was, tothe idea.The arrival of boat people from Vietnam in

countries of first asylum was essentially regulatedby weather patterns. In northern Vietnam, the peaksailing season to Hong Kong, which was thepreferred destination, was March, and the averagesailing time to the British colony was one week. Thepeak sailing season from the south was May. Basedon this data, it was decided that the first massinformation campaign would be undertaken innorthern Vietnam and would target the exodustoward Hong Kong. The campaign would explainthat a new situation had arisen in which refugeestatus had become a prerequisite for resettlement,and that those denied refugee status would have toreturn to Vietnam.In January 1990, a Hanoi TV crew arrived in

Hong Kong—a first. With the support of theauthorities, the crew was given free run of the city,including the port, the stock market, and therefugee camps. Among the many interviewsplanned, potentially the most convincing wouldhave featured an American consular officialexplaining the CPA in Vietnamese. This, however,would have required waiting months for approval

from Washington. Instead, an American consularofficial who had worked for years in Vietnam,spoke fluent Vietnamese, and was now involvedwith the ODP agreed to give an interview to a localcameraman; the tape was then given to theVietnamese TV crew. In addition, becausevoluntary repatriation of those denied refugeestatus had just begun, albeit slowly, the TV crewwas able to return to Hanoi by air on a repatriationflight chartered by UNHCR.The one-hour film was factual and to the point. It

showed the prosperity of Hong Kong, as well as lifein the camps, where food was adequate andhousing no worse than in Vietnam. But it alsoemphasized that, for those denied refugee status,there was only one option: return to Vietnam. Thefilm was aired on March 15, 1990, and rebroadcaston the three following evenings. At the same time,six copies were made and distributed to mobile filmteams, which went with a projector and a generatorto villages without access to TVs.Just six days after the first airing of the film,

arrivals in Hong Kong were down by some 70percent compared to the same period the previousyear. When the sailing season was over, the totalarrivals in Hong Kong numbered some 3,500,compared to 30,000 for the same period the yearbefore—an 88 percent decrease. In financial terms,with the cost of the upkeep of one boat person inHong Kong amounting to $1,800 per year, the totalsavings came to some $45 million. With anoperational budget of $150,000, the mass informa-tion campaign more than paid for itself. And moreimportantly, the results were long-lasting. While ittook a few more years to reduce the residualcaseload in Hong Kong, mass inflow from thenorth was now over for good.8

The sailing season from southern Vietnam to thecountries of ASEAN reached its apex in May.However, despite departures steadily continuing, itwas too late to move the mass informationcampaign to the south, so the endeavor waspostponed until 1991. By this time, news of theupdated screening procedures had reached thesouth, but boat departures continued. This waslargely due to those in the south having a higherchance of being granted refugee status than their

8 While the information campaign was not solely responsible for the decrease in departures, a survey undertaken in Hanoi indicated that many people decided, afterwatching the film, that leaving for Hong Kong was not worth the cost and effort.

8 Alexander Casella

northern counterparts, as well as feeling generallydisaffected with the regime. The ODP, which didnot exist in the north, could also provide a realisticalternative to illegal departure if fully implemented.The film for the south, which was produced by

Ho Chi Minh City TV, focused on two elements:first, that the chances of being granted refugeestatus were very low and often not worth the riskand the cost of the journey, and second, that theODP was now a realistic alternative to illegaldeparture. Additionally, forms that readers couldfill out and send to apply for the ODP were printedin all the main newspapers in the south.The results of the campaign in the south were

impressive. In May 1990, boat departures from thesouth totaled around 6,000; in May 1991, the figurehad dropped to around 400. From then on, themass exodus of boat people from Vietnam was athing of the past.The mass information campaigns alone did not

bring the exodus to a close, nor did the CPA’sprovisions for first asylum, screening, resettlement,and return. Rather, it was provisions within theCPA together with a changed situation in Vietnamthat created enabling conditions for the informa-tion campaign to be seen as credible. This said, ifthe information campaign had not been profes-sionally managed and had not taken into accountcultural sensitivities, it would likely have been oflittle consequence.THE END OF THE EXODUS—AND OFTHE COLD WAR

The situation in Vietnam changed drasticallyfollowing the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.For the leadership in Hanoi, it was a shatteringexperience. For half a century, they had viewedthemselves as the vanguard of the “world revolu-tion” in Southeast Asia. Now, a world revolutionceased to exist. Not only had they lost their ideolog-ical compass, and their only patron evaporated;overnight they had become orphans. Their foreignpolicy of occupying Cambodia, taunting ASEAN,vexing China, and irritating the US could no longerbe sustained.As a result, Vietnam’s leadership recognized that

they would have to normalize relations with theirneighbors. The boat people exodus had been one ofthe major irritants in their foreign relations withboth ASEAN and the US. Now they had a blueprint

to bring the issue to a close: the CPA. Its implemen-tation had been a sideshow. Now it was a prioritythat would permit the region to turn a page on theVietnam War.Once the exodus came to an end, however,

implementation of the CPA became a matter ofroutine for UNHCR. Refugee status screening andthe resettlement of those recognized as refugeeswas an ongoing process, and those denied refugeestatus were quietly set aside for repatriation. Withthe mechanics of the CPA under control, interest inAsia within UNHCR waned. The director ofUNHCR’s Asia bureau was reassigned, as was thespecial adviser overseeing the mass informationcampaign, which by this point was no longernecessary.THE PROBLEM OF REPATRIATION

As UNHCR’s focus shifted away from the region,implementation of the CPA began to falter, and bythe spring of 1995, it was on the verge of collapse.Besides the mass information campaign, the CPAwas composed of four mutually supportivecomponents: first asylum, screening, resettlement,and return. If one component were to fail, thewhole edifice would collapse—and now one wasfailing. Repatriation to Vietnam had come to a halt,and more and more Vietnamese who had beendenied refugee status were arriving to the camps. Return was the most controversial component of

the CPA, but also one of its most significant.UNHCR was responsible for refugees, but thosescreened out were, by definition, not refugees. Byincluding the concept of return among itsprovisions, the CPA extended UNHCR's mandateto service a new category of people consideredillegal migrants. As a result, the refugee issue couldnot be addressed without simultaneouslyaddressing the migration issue. In this respect, theCPA was indeed “comprehensive,” because itsought to address population movements ingeneral, including both asylum and migration. If the corollary of asylum was resettlement, the

corollary of illegal migration was repatriation. This,however, not only required the active involvementof the country of origin, but it also implied thatVietnam was now a “normal” country and that itscitizens could not claim to be subject to persecu-tion. The CPA was the first example of the Westdeclaring that individuals who fled a communist

MANAGING THE “BOAT PEOPLE” CRISIS 9

country were not automatically refugees and thatthey could be repatriated.Granted, when the CPA was adopted, Vietnam

was still a one-party state that did not tolerate anypolitical dissent. At the same time, however, theway in which the regime exercised its authority hadprofoundly changed. By the time the CPA wasadopted, Vietnamese nationals were no longersubject to restrictions on their freedom ofmovement, freedom to choose their profession,and economic freedom. Thus, the averageVietnamese person could no longer claim to befleeing a totalitarian environment and to faceautomatic persecution if repatriated. It was acontention that many could not countenance, andthese opponents continued to hinder theimplementation of the CPA.9

The other contentious issue was how repatriationshould be implemented. In December 1989, HongKong had forcibly returned to Vietnam a group offifty-one boat people who had been denied refugeestatus. Though the British would never have takenthe political risk of repatriating Vietnamese whowould have been in danger of persecution onreturn, the international outcry was such that, forone year, Hong Kong suspended all forced returnsand only proceeded with voluntary returns.Nonetheless, deportation was now more than atheoretical option. So for those denied refugeestatus, the message was clear: your only choice is toreturn voluntarily or be forcefully deported.All governments favored voluntary return, as it

was easier to organize and less stressful for allconcerned. At the same time, they recognized thatwithout the threat of forced return, there would befar fewer candidates for voluntary return. Thisapplied in particular to the US. Both for domesticpolitical reasons and for reputational concerns,Washington had officially expressed disapproval offorced return. In private, however, US diplomatsconceded that the option of forced return should bemaintained so as to preserve the momentum ofvoluntary repatriation.But by 1995, that momentum had been lost. The

agreement on voluntary repatriation betweenUNHCR and Vietnam provided that UNHCRwould submit the bio data of potential returnees to

Hanoi, which would approve them on a case-by-case basis. But while UNHCR had submitted some20,000 names, the Vietnamese government wasclearing them very slowly. Eventually, clearancescompletely stopped after the head of Vietnam'simmigration service felt that he had been publiclyinsulted by the director of UNHCR's Asia bureauduring an official meeting. It did not help thatUNHCR had no representative in Hanoi to addressthe problem. With the CPA due to end on June 30,1996, it was imperative to resume repatriation.After UNHCR appointed a new director of the

Asia bureau, Vietnamese authorities explained thatclearance for returnees from the south was delayeddue to communication problems. The backgroundof returnees had to be checked at their last place ofresidence, which was often an isolated village. Mostof these villages did not have any communicationsinfrastructure, and it took an inordinate amount oftime for the results of the investigation to reach theprovincial capitals. Solving this problem requiredcommunications equipment that cost $60,000. Thedirector immediately approved the purchase.Two months later, in January 1996, the number

of clearances skyrocketed, and UNHCR called aninformal meeting of ASEAN in Bangkok toofficially review the situation. The real reason forthe meeting, however, was to catalyze the countriesof ASEAN and the Vietnamese into formallyending the CPA. The CPA was supposed to end onJune 30th of that year, but suddenly the urgencyseemed to have faded. With an absence of newarrivals, Malaysia and Indonesia were in no hurryto close the camps; the presence of a few thousandVietnamese whom UNHCR was paying for wassomething they could live with.But not so in Washington. With the camp

population diminishing and clearances for returnsuddenly snowballing, a massive advocacycampaign originating in the US began. It targetedthe remaining camp population, encouraging themto oppose repatriation at all cost and inaccuratelyclaiming that new opportunities for resettlementwere just around the corner. It became clear thatthis campaign—supported by US politicians withlarge constituencies of Vietnamese émigrés andseeking to embarrass the administration—would

9 A number of advocacy and human rights groups argued that those returned to Vietnam were jailed or persecuted for their decision to flee, but there are nodocumented cases of this happening.

10 Alexander Casella

endure as long as there was a single Vietnamese leftin a single camp. Closing the camps thereforebecame a priority for the US administration—andif returns were to be forced, Washington wouldlook the other way.10

To increase pressure to meet the CPA deadline,during the ASEAN meeting UNHCR announcedthat it had run out of funds and, as of June 30th,would no longer pay for the upkeep of the camps.In reality this was not the case. Rather, it was theagency's attempt to incentivize the ASEANcountries to make one last effort to engage directlywith Vietnam to empty and close the camps. Afteran hour of negotiations, ASEAN and Vietnam hadcome to an agreement: repatriation would now beby ship, would take place under a mandatoryOrderly Repatriation Program, and wouldcommence as soon as possible from Malaysia andIndonesia, with UNHCR bearing the costs.The last obstacle was internal to UNHCR. The

representative in Kuala Lumpur refused onprinciple to execute an order for mandatory returnuntil she was prevailed upon to do as instructed.Having revised her position, she enlisted theservices of the Malaysian police, who descended onthe camp. In three systematic sweeps, the 2,500remaining Vietnamese were hustled onto threenaval landing ships chartered by UNHCR anddispatched to Vietnam. The operation wasrepeated in Indonesia. On June 30, 1996, UNHCRproclaimed the closure of the CPA.

Conclusion

The CPA brought to a close a problem that had, atone point in time, looked as if it was beyond asolution. It had endured for some fifteen years, andhad resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Butnot only did the CPA save lives; it did so withoutcompromising the principle of asylum. It ensuredboth that refugees be given the protection theywere entitled to and that non-refugees, while notbenefitting from a status for which they wereineligible, be treated in a humane way.But the impact of the CPA extended well beyond

the realm of humanitarian action. It became one ofthe main drivers behind Vietnam’s slow reintegra-tion into the ASEAN community and the interna-

tional community as a whole. Likewise, theimplementation of the ODP, by requiring somedegree of collaboration between Washington andHanoi, paved the way for subsequent exchangesthat, over the years, led to the normalization ofrelations between the two countries.All refugee situations are different; the lessons

derived from one cannot readily be applied toanother. But this said, the CPA does providelessons that extend beyond refugees fromIndochina.1. Decisive action sometimes depends on initia-

tives undertaken by enterprising individuals inthe field. There would likely have been no CPAif the Ford Foundation had not called a meetingin Cha-Am and if four of the participants, actingon their own initiative, had not decided thatsome action was required. With UNHCRheadquarters largely inactive, plans to addressthe Indochinese refugee crisis only progressedbecause US Ambassador Jonathan Moorepersonally prevailed on the high commissionerto authorize, albeit reluctantly, UNHCR’sBangkok office to proceed.

2. New approaches to refugee crises are bound tobe controversial. Opposition to the CPA waswidespread. While the NGO community did acredible job in the day-to-day management ofthe camps, it was not attuned to a wholesalerethinking of the refugee crisis and was againstit. The same sentiment was shared by theVietnamese émigré community in the US andby the human rights and advocacy community.

3. Comprehensive solutions require the commit-ment and involvement of the country of origin.It was only once Vietnam became involved thata solution to the crisis became possible. WhileVietnam was involved from early on in theprocess, it was not fully committed until thecollapse of the Soviet Union. Without thischange in external conditions, the CPA mayhave stagnated, as had the ODP after initiallyagreed on in 1979. Once Vietnam wascommitted to implementation—even without asubstantive change in its regime—repatriationof those denied refugee status became possible.

4. UN crisis response can be most effective when

10 For more information, see Tim Weiner, “New Effort by U.S. and Vietnam to Return Boat People Home,” New York Times, December 4, 1995.

a single agency is in the lead. Within the UNsystem, the implementation of the CPA wasspared the demands of “interagency coordina-tion” due to UNHCR being the only agencysubstantively involved in the plan. While IOMtook over the management of the ODP, this wasessentially a technical operation. The UNSecretariat in New York appeared risk-averseand was involved in the process only in name.Politically, there was only one UN player:UNHCR.

5. Countries’ involvement in responding torefugee crises does not necessarily translateinto them adopting refugee law. WhileUNHCR did succeed in training a core ofscreening officers from the ASEAN countries,the region’s rejection of the Refugee Conventionendured unchanged.

6. Refugees and migrants are easy victims ofrumors and disinformation.One of the reasonsthe CPA was successful was not only that it hadbeen set up but that it was known to exist. Theinformation campaign enabled potential boatpeople to make an educated decision aboutwhether to leave by boat, while also explainingthe mechanics of the ODP. Setting up a credibleinformation program using available means ofcommunication to target refugees and migrantsshould be a priority for any comprehensiveresponse.

7. Durable solutions must address both refugeesand migrants. Probably the main achievementof the CPA was to bridge the asylum-migrationconundrum and replace it, in fact if not inwords, with a solution to population movementin general. Within this movement, some mighthave been forced to move for reasons covered bythe Refugee Convention; others might havebeen forced by other circumstances. Ultimately,solving the problem of the refugee componentof the movement required a parallel solution toits non-refugee component. The CPA wastherefore comprehensive not only in terms ofthe solutions adopted—first asylum, screening,resettlement, and repatriation—but also inaddressing population movement beyond theconvention.None of this would have occurred without the

right circumstances. But these circumstances alonewould not have sufficed. What carried the day,ultimately, were the right people at the right placeat the right time. This did not in any way mean thatthe international bureaucracies, with their setprocedures, administrative routines, lawyers, andaccountants could be dispensed with. But it didconfirm that, in times of crisis, when the situationdemands more than a “business-as-usual”approach, there is no substitute for the oddmaverick who dares to take an initiative, and forwhom doing the right thing comes before doingthings right.

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