I  Root Cause of the Exodus

‘It is better to drown at sea than to live under Communism.'
A popular statement often expressed by many people in Vietnam after 1975.

 The principal cause of the boat people exodus of biblical proportions was Hanoi’s relentless endeavor to eliminate fundamental liberties, non-communist ways of life and beliefs. (Photo: B. McDougall)

Ancient legends of the Vietnamese people depict their country’s founders, Princess Âu Cơ and Emperor Lạc Long Quân, as having 100 children. After assigning responsibilities to various princes, the founding parents decided to divide the children into two groups and relocate them to strategic regions in order to facilitate the administration of the state. Princess Âu Cơ took the first group to the highland and eventually established the governing rank of thần núi (king of the mountain).  Emperor Lạc Long Quân took the other group toward the sea, and the thần biển (king of the ocean) post was subsequently incepted.  The era of Hùng Vơng (Reign of the Courageous) began and changed the course of ancient Vietnam’s history fundamentally.[1] Five thousand years later, nearly a million Vietnamese boat people headed out to sea and eventually migrated to many parts of the world, and consequently the course of modern Vietnam’s history has been transformed forever.

The Vietnamese boat people are asylum-seekers who (i) fled the communist ruthless campaign to eliminate fundamental liberties, non-Marxist beliefs and ways of life, and (ii) risked their lives to escape to freedom on boats, vessels, rafts or floats after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.  Out of almost two million people who tried to flee the communist systemic persecution after the collapse of South Vietnam, nearly 800,000 lucky Asylees either reached safety in neighboring states on their own or were rescued at sea by foreign vessels. Of the unfortunate fates, many were apprehended and indicted by Hanoi’s security patrols, others were shot to death while trying to elude arrest and lengthy incarceration, and a huge number of unknown victims were robed, raped, kidnapped, murdered and died without a trace in the Gulf of Thailand or the South China Sea.

     Refugees are not strangers in Vietnam, a country for years ravaged by ideological conflicts’ brutalities.  Prior to the fall of Saigon to the communists on April 30, 1975, there were approximately ten million war refugees, but no one ever chose to abandon Vietnam to seek protection elsewhere. 

The Vietnamese heritage strongly discourages one from leaving his or her ‘quê cha đất tổ’ (fatherland and ancestors’ soil), where embedded his or her ancestors’ shrine which has to be gracefully maintained and continually worshipped.  In fact, it is considered unfortunate for anyone forced by economic or political reasons to leave his or her homeland to establish a new life elsewhere. 

Con người có Tổ, có Tông
Cái cây có cội, con sông có nguồn.
Nhà quê có họ, có hàng,
Có làng, có xóm, nhỡ nhàng có nhau.

A person has his ancestors and family

Like a tree has its root or a river has its origin.

In the homeland [or birthplace],

 there are family members and relatives,

villagers and neighbors to depend on at adverse times.[2]

    Back in colonial time, it was perceived unconscionable and bad luck for many northerners, who had to go south or to Cambodia to earn their living. Vietnamese literature includes various tales and verses to lament this deplorable situation. ‘Nam Vang lên dễ khó về; Trai theo bạn biển, gái về tào kê.’'  (It is easy to come to Cambodia but impossible to leave; Forever men become seamen and girls be enslaved by Sino-capitalist pigs).

The pre-1975 war refugees’ movement was intra-national, and not inter-national, because there was always a free port somewhere in non-communist South Vietnam for the Asylees to anchor briefly prior to returning to their home.  The collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975 brought about fundamental changes in all aspects of society, including the asylum-seekers’ movement that no longer had any free port within Indochina to seek temporary shelters.[3] 

With an iron fist, Hanoi undertook extreme measures to destroy and eradicate all traces of liberalism in South Vietnam after its army seized Saigon. All non-communist segments of society were perceived to be potential enemies of the state; and consequently millions of people including the intellectuals, business entrepreneurs, ethnic minorities, and especially former South Vietnamese infantrymen and their families became permanent prisoners in their own country.  Hundreds of thousands of suspected enemies of the state were incarcerated in so-called re-education camps indefinitely without trial. Private properties were confiscated with neither justification nor compensation. Systemic ethnic and political discrimination was the official policy that aimed at eliminating all undesirable elements from the newly established communist system.[4] For those who had to choose between liberty and bondage, there was only one way to escape Hanoi’s tyrannical control: fleeing the home country in search of freedom elsewhere, even at the risk of death.

To be forced out of one’s hometown is an unfortunate situation, but to be forced out of one’s home country is an inconceivable tragedy. There were several complex political and socioeconomic factors underlying the Vietnamese exodus of biblical proportions; however, the principal cause of the boat people’s mass departure was Hanoi’s relentless eradication of fundamental liberties, non-communist beliefs and ways of life. The boat people’s determined escape despite the inherent risk of death at sea represents not only their rejection of the socialist oppressive policies but also the ultra-extreme attitudes and hatreds with which the Hanoi regime treats the Vietnamese populace.

Hanoi's Expulsion Policy

       After April 30, 1975, even in light of the harsh communist measures to destroy all traces of liberalism in Vietnam, Hanoi's supporters still insist falsely that while the Vietnamese people do not possess the freedom which foreigners have, nevertheless they are enjoying peace in a unified country. To the contrary, Socialist Vietnam is a state of terror where Hanoi’s visible achievements are its systemic destruction of economic resources and institutionalised extermination of non-Marxist beliefs and ways of life.

            Socialist Vietnam has no peace because the people are constantly terrified by the past, distressed by the uncertain future, and afraid of everyone around. In actuality, the Vietnamese are victimised in their own country by the communist regime. Their only rights are the rights to be poor, submissive and to perish for Hanoi’s ideological ambitions. Other forms of freedom such as the freedom of speech, worship, peaceful assembly, etc., are completely abolished. Political differences are intolerable, and individuals requesting universal liberty and democracy are forcibly sent to ‘re-education’ prisons.

            Australian diplomat Bruce Grant and a team of journalists investigated the boat people exodus extensively in late 1979 and found:[5] ‘Among the Vietnamese, a strong political motivation to leave their homeland was often clear… Age of the boat refugees from the south ranged widely, but most were under thirty-five.  There were many women and children.  Some young men said they left to avoid conscription. Some people said they were victims of politically inspired harassment and persecution; others said they feared such treatment.  Fear of what might happen was a potent factor, sometimes taking grotesque forms… A feeling of alienation from the new communist administration and identity with the old regime was common, often mixed with an economic motivation: a conviction that their livelihood was bleak for themselves and for their children.  Fear of “re-education” or of being sent to a “new economic zone” were also pervasive.’  The Office of the U.S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs concluded in March 1979 that the ‘overwhelming majority (of the boat people) arriving now are leaving not because of past direct ties with the United States, but because they wish to escape the ravages of continuing armed conflict as well as persecution and maltreatment stemming from the general restructuring of society..’[6] imposed by the new communist regime.

            Naturally, in order to justify its ideological oppression, Hanoi had to dismiss the boat people as reactionaries unable to endure economic hardships. Instead of accepting responsibility for the Vietnamese people’s welfare and protecting their rights, Hanoi chose to vilify the boat people in defense of its discriminatory measures. Its monthly English publication Vietnam Courier ran an article in 1979 to slander the boat people as follows:

‘The great majority have left Vietnam for economic reasons, unable to bear the privations and having failed to find occupations to their liking…

Some are former war criminals, or are members of counter-revolutionary networks who feel they are about to be discovered.

In the case of the intellectuals, there are various factors which combine in varying degrees.  All having experienced a serious drop in their standard of living…  The difficulty (they) feel to adapt (themselves) to the constraints of a revolutionary society.’

Hanoi went farther to assert that a segment of the exodus was provoked by ‘imperial and reactionary forces’ in Beijing and Washington.[7] At one time, Hanoi accused Beijing of dumping 100,000 Chinese citizens, who then claimed to be refugees, in Vietnamese waters. According to Hanoi’s Foreign Minister NguyÍn CÖ Thåch, ‘Many of the boat people in ASEAN countries were actually from China.  More than 100,000.  They (Beijing) are very clever.  We have arrested some of ships from China going to Southeast Asia… many people do not realize this because the Chinese from China are the same as from Vietnam.’ In a letter to ‘Western friends,’ Hanoi’s intellectuals tried to defame the boat people for fleeing the socialist regime; the letter inadvertently admitted that ‘occasional excesses, errors, fumblings’ were committed by the communists but claimed those were ‘necessary rectifications.’

Despite these public statements, Hanoi’s officials however opinionated differently in private. A senior diplomat disclosed in December 1978 that the people in South Vietnam had become accustomed to certain political freedom and economic autonomy; and after 1975, the communists could not change the southerners’ pattern of thinking and thus preferred that they would leave the country as boat people in order for the new regime to maintain political stability in the South.[8] 

In fact, the post-1975 undeclared policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) was to expel at least two to three million politically-undesirable citizens in order for the regime to achieve its ideological objectives. In June 1979, Hanoi’s Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch expressed that most refugees ‘are from the south, from Ho Chi Minh City in particular.  In 1975, we forbade them to go out.  We were criticized by the west.  We thought it over.  We decided to give them the freedom to go. Now (the west) say we are exporting refugees...’[9]

At the first international conference on Indochinese refugees in July 1979, Hanoi’s Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hiền suggested to the Swedish delegation that some 3 million refugees might have to leave the Vietnamese socialist system.  In August 1979, Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch conveyed to a UPI reporter that the same number would escape ‘depending on the political situation.’[10]  In the same month, during a discussion with Daniel K. Akaka, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives delegation headed by Benjamin Rosenthal visiting Hanoi for two days, Nguyễn Cơ Thạch revealed that some 2 million refugees might try to flee Hanoi’s rigid control.

In light of the fact that at least 1.6 to 2 million people are estimated to have tried to escape communist persecution, approximately 800,000 escapees arrived safely at various ports outside of Socialist Vietnam, between 80,000 and 200,000 lives lost at sea, and more than 1 million O.D.P.[11] departures and family members subsequently sponsored by the overseas refugees,  Hanoi’s policy of expelling between 2 million to 3 million Vietnamese of diverse backgrounds appears to have been realized.

The CPV’s expulsion policy was compared to Hitler’s systematic murder of the Jews by Filipino Foreign Minister Carlos Romulo, who characterized it as ‘another form of inhumanity, equal in scope and similarly heinous’ to the holocaust.  His Singapore’s counterpart Sinnathamby Rajaratnam publicly depicted Hanoi’s scheme as ‘a poor man’s alternative to the gas chambers is the open sea.’

If the boat people’s daring escape was for ‘economic reasons’ as alleged publicly by Hanoi, one could safely infer that the resettled refugees would quickly become too busy with their economic life and soon ignore Socialist Vietnam’s on-going political developments. The reality, however, reflects a contradictory fact: the boat people (i) constantly voice their concerns to the world about Hanoi’s serious human rights violations, and (ii) faithfully uphold the symbol of their aspiration for freedom: their golden flag of liberty, which is saluted at the official opening of all their gatherings around the globe.[12]

Outside of Socialist Vietnam, there is no easy place for the CPV’s delegations to conduct official businesses because the boat people have perpetually organized countless demonstrations to denounce Hanoi’s oppressive policies. For instance, when sixty-five nations including Socialist Vietnam converged in Geneva on July 20, 1979 under the United Nations’ umbrella to find a solution to the boat people tragedy, the resettled refugees were able to hold an influential demonstration at this conference causing major public embarrassments for Hanoi’s delegation led by its Deputy Foreign Minister PPhan Hiền. A banner held by two Vietnamese refugees declared ‘TOUT LE PEUPLE VIETNAMIEN CONTRE LA CLIQUE DE HANOI’ (All the Vietnamese people oppose the Hanoi clique).  The CPV was so offended by the message that its delegation demanded the banner be removed before it would attend the conference. A similar objection by Hanoi was made to the Canadian government when the Vietnamese community erected the ‘Refugee Mother and Child’ statue on August 22, 1996 ‘in memory of those who have lost their lives in their quest for freedom.’ Ottawa flatly repudiated Hanoi’s position on the basis that Canada is a democracy and thus all citizens’ freedom of expression is guaranteed.

On the globe wherever the boat people’s golden flag of liberty is raised,[13] pro-Hanoi activities would be checked or eliminated. In one clear instance, the Asylees successfully called world attention to the CPV’s evil determination to execute distinguished Buddhist Monks Tuệ Sï and Trí Siêu for rejecting Marxism. The communist regime eventually had to give in to the international outcry and reduced the Buddhist leaders’ death sentence to life incarceration, and then released them in 1998.

In another case, in mid-January 1999, a business owner and religious fanatic named Trần Văn Trường reportedly was offered U.S.$500,000 by a seditious source[14] to hang a communist red flag and Hồ Chí Minh’s poster in his video rental store, HiTek, in Orange Country, California. When the Vietnamese community protested, Trường, who once declared himself God, distributed a letter via fax to publicly challenge the pro-liberty advocates’ ability to pressure him to remove the insulting symbols.  Trường’s pro-Hanoi manifestation attracted even more demonstrators, who matched daily to oppose his offensive display. During the standoff, daily protests at times attracted up to fifty thousand refugees, many of whom were students and young people.  It was extraordinary to witness 1 in every 4 Vietnamese refugees in Orange County took time off from work and family obligations to attend the mass demonstration to oppose Trường’s pro-communist stand; those Asylees, who could not attend the nonstop protest, called in to various radio networks to express their disgust at Trường’s notorious behavior. Ultimately even Trường’s family reportedly disowned him for his pro-Hanoi manifestation and decisively made a substantial contribution to the fund used to support the pro-liberty demonstration.

On January 26, 1999, Hanoi’s Department of Foreign Affairs publicly criticized the refugees’ opposition to Trường’s pro-communist conduct. Hanoi suddenly became concerned for fundamental human rights in its characterization of the boat people’s demonstration as ‘a blatant violation of human rights’ (  Two days earlier, in a press release aimed at attracting media attention, Hanoi’s embassy in Washington demanded that Trường’s  pro-communist manifestation be protected by U.S. laws; the embassy’s press release deliberately ignored the fact that its communist regime presently possesses one of the worse records for human rights violations, and Hanoi severely persecutes any dissident, who dares to raise the golden flag of liberty and exercises his or her freedom of speech to covey pro-democracy messages in Socialist Vietnam. In fact, in 1992, a young Vietnamese man named Phạm Văn Quang raised the golden flag in the heart of Saigon to draw international attention to Hanoi’s oppressive policies; he was arrested immediately, beaten severely by security cadres and then sentenced by the regime to 15 years in prison for exercising of his freedom of expression.

In combination with endless demonstrations for liberty and democracy, the boat people are also extremely active in delivering accurate news about the fall of Eastern European communism to the inland Vietnamese. The CPV has been banking on ignorance and idealism to exert control over the people, and the force of knowledge and realism will eventually bring about fundamental changes. Acting on this rationale, the boat people initiate and sustain the continuous flow of information to Socialist Vietnam via mail and fax; tens of thousands of factual messages about the movement for liberty and democracy are sent annually to various individuals and government agencies. The Internet is also used extensively by the boat people to publish their cause and advocate for the inland people’s fundamental rights.  The boat people’s active denunciation of Hanoi’s human rights violations and their spectacular successes in final-asylum democracies crystallize unequivocally their aspiration for liberty, which was the underlying cause of their flight.

Root Cause of the Exodus

The boat people headed out to the dangerous sea to escape ideological brutalities resulted from the CPV's socioeconomic repression and political oppression. The principal cause of the boat people exodus of biblical proportions was Hanoi’s relentless endeavor to eliminate fundamental liberties, non-communist ways of life and beliefs.[16] The boat people’s mass departure due to ideological persecution and insecurity inflicted upon them by Hanoi represents not only their rejection of the socialist oppressive policies but also the ultra-extreme attitudes and hatreds with which the Communist Party treats the Vietnamese people. 

Many boat people occasionally reply ‘Ðời sống khổ quá’' (Life was extremely difficult) when asked why they left Socialist Vietnam.  The inquirer might erroneously take this response as to reflect an economic overtone but, in reality, it encompasses many complex underlying factors ranging from religious repression to social isolation and harassment to economic oppression to political persecution resulted from Hanoi’s ideological policies. ‘Life was extremely difficult’ because the Communist Party of Vietnam actively discriminates against and seeks means to contain and neutralize all non-socialist segments of society that it considers undesirable or in possession of liberal beliefs on the basis of ‘religion (Buddhists, Catholics, Cao-Daists, etc.), race (Chinese Vietnamese, Hmong, etc.) nationality, political opinion (dissidents, pro-democracy activists, family members of South Vietnamese soldiers and officials), or membership of a particular social group (intellectuals, business entrepreneurs, etc.).’[17] In fact, Hanoi’s Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch had to admit the political nature of the boat people exodus in an interview with a UPI reporter in August 1979; he disclosed that as many as 3 million people might have to flee Socialist Vietnam as boat people ‘depending on the political situation.’[18] 

            The cause of the boat people exodus is reflected in no field clearer than in the intellectual life of Vietnamese expatriates. Before the boat people’s mass departure, oversea Vietnamese literature tended to focus on nostalgia and guilt in exile.  The past was ultra-important while life in exile was associated with guilty feelings for those who stayed behind in Socialist Vietnam.

With the boat people’s arrival in final-asylum countries, the entire foundation of the overseas Vietnamese literature changed swiftly and unequivocally. The present actualities and future outlook began to offer a central direction for most literary works. The real facts of communist destructive policies were described in details with vivid real-life experiences.  The refugee literature commenced to present an optimistic view about a future of equality and prosperity in a free and just society along with a deep appreciation for the opportunities offered by final-asylum societies. The previous literature of sorrows was replaced by the boat people’s literature of protest with a clear mission to expose the brutal realities in Socialist Vietnam and to thank resettlement countries that offered a safe haven for Vietnamese refugees. 

The boat people have risked their lives to flee ideological persecution and, in spite of their tragic experience at sea and its lasting adverse effects, they still possess the determination to voice their concerns about Hanoi’s serious human rights violations. In fact, it was the Vietnamese refugees' persistence in condemning the CPV's oppressive policies that helped to change the mind of many former anti-war activists. For instance, in May 1979,  Joan Baez and 83 other peace activists published an ‘Open letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’ to criticize Hanoi’s 'painful nightmare’: ‘Thousands of innocent Vietnamese, many whose only crimes are those of conscience, are being arrested, detained and tortured in prisons and re-education camps… Your government has created a painful nightmare that overshadows significant progress achieved in many areas of Vietnam society.’

The history of mankind will undoubtedly record many more incredible imprints of the Vietnamese boat people, who risked their lives to escape communist persecution and search for liberty and democracy. Many ill-fated victims were robed, raped, kidnapped, murdered and died without any trace; others were fortunate to reach safety in countries of final asylum.  The tragedy of the Vietnamese exodus could only end where liberty and democracy triumph.