The boat people's sufferings invoked bitter memories about the tragic fates of innocent Jewish refugees during World War II. The international press began to report on the dreadful journey of Vietnamese Asylees, who had become defenseless victims of the 'Asian holocaust' in the eye of many observers. Numerous humanitarian agencies actively called on world leaders to take immediate actions to assist and resettle the boat people to prevent the reoccurrence of another holocaust.

While Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York on behalf of 100 million Jews and Christians asked the U.S. and U.N. to help Vietnamese Asylees, Chair of the Commission on the Holocaust Elie Wiesel expressed outrage '.. at the sight of people set adrift with no country willing to welcome them ashore. We are horrified at the imposition of quotas which exclude women and children in the full knowledge that such a policy of exclusion can be a sentence of death.'[1] Many U.S. lawmakers such as Senator Dole, Boschwiz and Hayakawa, and Congressman McCloskey also voiced their concern over Washington's lack of leadership.  Representative Stephen Solarz urged the administration to admit more boat people:[2]

'It would be nice if the government of (Socialist) Vietnam were not the government of Vietnam and it had the kinds of policies which enabled these people to remain, but it is what it is, and we have got to deal with the subsequent realities. In the 1930's somebody might have said that Nazi Germany should change its policies to accommodate the needs of the Jewish people in Germany so that they would not want to leave, but the reality of the situation was that the Nazis were not about to change their policy, and the only real question (is).. whether we were going to open our doors to the people who were desperate to get out.'

 

            Under mounting public pressure, the White House gradually realized the need to provide leadership to the international community in dealing the Indochinese refugee crisis. Washington recognized that the prestige of leadership came with a price, i.e. unless the American government undertook an active role in assisting and resettling the boat people, the U.S. could not use its influence to attract international interests to resolve this humanitarian crisis and other subsequent gigantic challenges. A new policy began to gain more support within the Carter Administration;  it called for the punishment of Hanoi for its inhumane policy[3] and the involvement of the international community in a joint effort to find a durable solution to the refugee problem in Southeast Asia.

            In the spring of 1979, out of the fear that continuing inaction would eventually bring about a holocaust at sea, the U.S. officiated its leadership in the endeavor to help Indochinese Asylees. In his warning to Congress that 'the volcano is about to blow,' Chairman of the International Rescue Committee Leo Cherne elaborated on the need for American leadership as follows:[4]

'Despite our efforts and those of a few other countries - notably France, Australia, and Canada - the world's response is grievously inadequate. What is needed, and this clearly comes to the nub of the problem.. is clearly leadership.. The President and the Congress must clearly enunciate a national commitment to resolve this present human crisis and call on the rest of the free world to work with us.. We certainly will press as hard as we can for a meaningful American response to that crisis. This nation has done it in the past, there is no reason why we cannot do it now.'

 

  To set the stage for the international community's participation in the rescue of Vietnamese boat people, President Carter announced the U.S. plan to double the Indochinese refugee admission to 14,000 persons per month. In response to President Carter's lobby at the Group of Seven's economic summit in Tokyo, Japan agreed to bear half of the UNHCR's 1979 budget and the operating costs of refugee camps. 
Hanoi’s policy toward the boat people caused the Group of Seven to issue a ‘special statement of the Tokyo Summit on Indochinese refugees’ in June 1979. It depicted the refugee tragedy in Southeast Asia as ‘a humanitarian problem of historical proportions’ and pledged to ‘significantly increase their contributions to Indochinese refugee relief and resettlement by making funds available and by admitting more people… while taking into account the existing social and economic circumstances in each of their countries.’ 

On July 20, 1979, sixty-five nations including Socialist Vietnam conferred in Geneva under the United Nations’ umbrella to find a solution to the Indochinese refugee crisis. According to Australian Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Michael MacKellar, ‘We are again called to consider one of the most inhuman and unnecessary tragedies in the calendar of human suffering.’  And the delegates to this historic U.N. conference had found: 'Much is at stake: fundamental principles of law and of conduct, the future of countless people and the sanctity of human life, the will and capacity of the international community to respond in unison and in full measure.'

The failure of the 1938 Evian Conference to offer resettlement places for Jews, who were consequently slaughtered by Hitler, was still fresh in the mind of many delegates attending the first global convention on Indochinese refugees. The world hoped that the 1979 conference would create more resettlement opportunities for Vietnamese boat people and could pressure Hanoi into eliminating its principal role in the trade in human misery and respecting fundamental human rights, including the right of unhindered emigration as proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is interesting to learn that the overseas Vietnamese community successfully held an influential demonstration at that event causing serious embarrassments for Hanoi’s delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hiền. A big banner held by two Vietnamese refugees read ‘TOUT LE PEUPLE VIETNAMIEN CONTRE LA CLIQUE DE HANOI’  (All the Vietnamese people oppose the Hanoi clique.) Hanoi was so offended that its delegation demanded the banner be removed before it would attend the conference.[5]

The Meeting on Refugees and Displaced Persons in South East Asia - the largest-ever international conference on refugees in history[6] attended by 65 official delegations along with other countries’ observing representatives, and government agencies as well as non-governmental organizations - exposed the ugly truths about Hanoi’s strategy in dealing with the boat people. The delegates to the conference were able - with limited degrees of success - to pressure Hanoi to suspend its ‘freedom for sale’ ploy and ease emigration restrictions to allow overseas family reunions and sponsorships.  At the end of the meeting, U.N. Secretary General Waldheim announced publicly:

        ‘As a result of my consultations, the government of Socialist Republic of Vietnam has authorized me to inform you that for a reasonable period of time it will make every effort to stop illegal departures. In the meantime, the government of Vietnam will cooperate with the UNHCR in expanding the present seven-point program designed to bring departures into orderly and safe channels.’

It should be noted that earlier Hanoi refused to acknowledge its involvement in organizing human cargoes of ship people. Before the U.N. conference, Hanoi tried desperately to dissociate itself from the trade in human misery by manipulating an incident involved the Greek cargo vessel, the Nikitas F. The vessel’s crew was prosecuted on unsubstantiated refugee trafficking charges when it delivered 11,400 tons of wheat to Vietnam on May 26, 1979.  Found guilty of aiding 69 stowaways, the vessel and its operators were fined more than U.S. $10,000. The vessel’s master, Samothrakitis Komniwos, told Hong Kong marine authorities later that it was his officers who found the stowaways on board and asked Vietnamese security cadres for assistance to remove them; ironically, they were indicted by Hanoi on refugee trafficking charges. This incident was just a desperate act by Hanoi to distant itself from the huge human cargoes that it sent out to neighboring states. If the Nikitas F were involved in refugee racketeering, it would be unlikely that only 69 people were allowed to get on board; and it is also interesting to note that the Nikitas F was permitted to leave Ho Chi Minh City port without having to pay a penny of the huge fine.  

After the U.N. conference in July 1979, to demonstrate its eagerness to carry out the previously promised obligations, Hanoi sentenced to death several detained escapees including former South Vietnamese soldier Trần Minh Châu who was executed on August 6, 1979 for organizing a secret departure aboard a stolen government fishing boat. The harsh judgment was merely for show and Trần Minh Châu became a scapegoat; yet the masterminds behind the CPV’s massive ‘freedom for sale’ ploy were untouched.

In early August 1979, to prove Hanoi’s capability to stop illegal departures, Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch exaggerated to the visiting U.S. House of Representatives mission headed by Benjamin S. Rosenthal that Hanoi had successfully prosecuted 4,000 cases of failed escapes (organized by ordinary individuals) within the past 7 months (at the peak of Hanoi's export of human cargoes). This assertion translated into tens of thousands of prisoners, who were caught during their failed privately-organized secret escapes, because most unofficial secret escapes could rarely involve more than a few dozen asylum-seekers.

By August 1979, the Vietnamese communist regime appeared to have temporarily suspended its sanctioned ‘freedom for sale’ project because the number of departures by sea declined significantly. Of the 201,189 arrivals in 1979, more than 160,000 refugees came before the international conference in July 1979; and after the conference, the cumulative 6-month arrivals dropped by 75% to 41,000 persons.   A refugee official in Malaysia reflected in 1980 that: ‘All we’re seeing at present is the same sort of clandestine departure that has been going on since 1975.’  Journalist Barry Wain observed: ‘Intensive interviewing confirmed that the new arrivals were genuine escapees. They were overwhelmingly ethnic Vietnamese from the southern part of the country..’ [7]  In Hong Kong, 98% of the boat people arriving after 1979 were ethnic Vietnamese.

            Swedish Foreign Minister Hans Blix’s appeal for the orderly unhindered exit of refugees was well received by the U.N. conference delegates,[8] and Hanoi promised to carry out its obligations contained in the 7-point ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ concluded with the UNHCR on May 30, 1979. The Memorandum enlisted the UNHCR’s help to implement Hanoi’s new emigration policy proclaimed on January 12, 1979 and enforced by a Cabinet’s directive dated March 14, 1979. Vietnamese citizens were allowed to emigrate overseas for family reunion or employment purposes. The Orderly Departure Program (ODP) was born with a theoretical objective of providing for a systematic outflow of émigrés from Vietnam while the CPV would refrain from organizing profit-making departures.[9]

In practice, the ODP implementation encountered many serious obstacles because only those approved by Hanoi could leave Socialist Vietnam, i.e. the final decision on the right to leave lied with Hanoi, whose policy of inhumanity appeared to continue to pay enormous dividends.[10] Hanoi’s Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch commented in June 1979 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. So now we say that they must ask to go. And we will allow them to go.’[11] Naturally, genuine refugees needed not apply to have their names included on Hanoi’s list because a public revelation of their sufferings at the hands of communist cadres would send them straight to re-education prisons. Similarly, resettlement countries would rightly be more receptive to relatives of their naturalized citizens and permanent residents, instead of some unknown fee-paying individuals who bribed to have their names on Hanoi’s list. Another legal problem also arose, i.e. how would those leaving under the ODP arrangements be classified: immigrants or refugees? The international community should be concerned with the protection of refugees; but how many genuine refugees could seek asylum within the ODP framework, which was clearly steered toward family reunions and relative sponsorships?

In the case of the United States, Hanoi initially handed over two lists containing some 30,000 names with virtually no personal information attached therein, and thus there was no way to confirm the status of the potential émigrés. In 1979, of the 5,000 names submitted by Washington, only 228 persons were given exit visas by Hanoi; Foreign Minister Nguyễn Cơ Thạch blamed red tape when asked to explain the CPV’s slow response.[12]

In the case of Canada, Hanoi insisted that Ottawa had to grant residency status for one candidate proposed by the communist regime in exchange for every émigré admitted under the family reunion class. Hanoi’s demand came with a threat from its Foreign Ministry’s Consular Affairs Director, Vũ Khoan, who stated plainly that if Socialist Vietnam’s offer were not accepted then the regime would not hesitate to once again export human cargoes to neighboring states.  The ODP thus opened new windows for abuses, and Hanoi’s ‘freedom for sale’ project was being carried out under a new internationally-approved cover.

In January 1981, Hanoi unilaterally discontinued the ODP process. The program was reinitiated in August after new agreements were reached between Socialist Vietnam and resettlement countries, and thereafter it continued in fits and starts.[13] The ODP failed to offer the real durable solution that the international community previously hoped for, and had no effect on the ordinary escapes unsanctioned by the CPV because there were many genuine refugees, who could not expect to be allowed to flee communist persecution through the regime-controlled ODP procedures.

The ODP also presented boundless opportunities for Hanoi’s officials to extract bribes for exit visas.  A system of complex regulations and a web of ‘cò giấy tờ’ (back-door document process servers) were instituted to collect fees and grafts from ODP applicants. All those, who applied to leave Socialist Vietnam, immediately lost their jobs and became dependent on financial support from their overseas relatives. In the case of Ms. Thu Vân in Montreal, Canada, her family of seven in Vietnam was required to pay U.S. $5,000[14] to Hanoi when applying for permanent residency in Canada in 1979. Three years later, the family was requested to resubmit a new application and a further fee of U.S. $3,000. Mr. Bành Quý, a refugee residing in New York, paid even more; the ODP departure cost for his family of eight was U.S. $25,000. ODP-led corruption was rampant in Socialist Vietnam but, as long as the problem was not extraterritorial, it did not really concern the outside world inherently short of compassion.

The ODP was supposed to eliminate Hanoi's trade in human misery but, in reality, it only helped to reduce - but could not abolish - the communist involvement in the export of human cargoes.  Hanoi's trade in human misery continued for at least another decade after the 1979 international conference on Indochinese Refugees.  In one clear instance, in November 1987, a Vietnamese Navy ship escorted a civilian boat from Cà Mau to Rạch Giá;  it stopped and picked up fare-paying passengers at Phụng Hiệp before setting sail for the open sea. Two high-ranking security officers and four navy officers were on board the civilian boat until it reached international waters to ensure a smooth departure. The cadres then returned to Vietnam on the accompanied navy vessel. The 182 passengers on the boat paid between 4 and 5 taels of gold each for the officially sponsored trip to freedom; and it took them 2 days and 3 nights to reach Malaysia safely.[15]

The ODP framework endorsed by delegates to the first international conference on Indochinese refugees clearly failed its preset objective of providing for a systematic outflow of Vietnamese asylum-seekers while preventing Hanoi from organizing charter departures on rusty ships. More importantly, the ODP blatantly violated the principle proclaimed by Article 13 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country’) because it sanctioned Hanoi’s infringement of Vietnamese citizens’ ‘right to leave.’  Subsequent developments revealed that many genuine refugees from Socialist Vietnam eventually suffered severely due to compassion fatigue while the ODP and other similar international instruments could not offer adequate protection for them.

            The single most significant achievement of the first international conference on Indochinese refugees was perhaps its success in awaking human conscience about the dreadful flight of the boat people and other asylum-seekers. The boat people tragedy was effectively internationalized and thereafter attracted tremendous global concerns as well as incredible humanitarian responses. Other concrete achievements of the U.N. conference could be summarized as follows:

· A substantial increase in the number of committed resettlement places from 125,000 on May 31 to more than 260,000 on July 21, 1979.

· New financial pledges totaling about U.S.$190 million in cash and kind.

· Pledges to coordinate international rescue efforts to assist the boat people in distress at sea.

· U.S.$25 million was offered for a proposed fund to extend resettlement to developing countries which were ready to receive refugees but lacked the necessary resources.

· A site for a refugee processing center capable of sheltering up 50,000 Asylees was offered by the Philippines. (In December 1980, the Galang Regional Processing Center, in addition to the existing Galang Refugee Camp, was opened in Indonesia to process boat people from Singapore and Thailand.)

· Hanoi inadvertently admitted the Vietnamese Communist Party's expulsion policy and its leading role in the trade of human misery, and thereafter agreed to suspended its ‘freedom for sale’ scheme.

In response to the new favorable conditions, first-asylum countries began to carry out their obligations as recommended by the conference: 'Within the framework of the over-all solutions envisaged, Governments of the port of call must allow the disembarkation of all those rescued.'  Malaysia quietly abandoned the official tow-out practice and continued to allow the boat people to reach its shore.  Thailand also stopped its blockage of arriving refugees. The international rescue effort was restarted with new enthusiasms and galvanized participation of private ships and the U.S. Seventh Fleet vessels.

In the final analysis, however, the historic conference failed to provide any long-term solution to the Indochinese refugee tragedy. The root cause of the exodus was not addressed properly, and Hanoi was not bounded in any way to respect the Vietnamese people’s liberty, non-communist beliefs and ways of life. As a result, the boat people’s escapes did not cease completely but continued to place tremendous pressures on neighboring states, especially when the resettlement of asylum-seekers slowed down significantly in later years.