THE JULY 1979 CONFERENCE

by  PHI-VÂN NGUYEN

January 2020

After hearing the declarations by G7 and ASEAN countries, the Secretary-General made a decision. He organized a conference on Southeast Asian refugees in Geneva. Sixty-five nations attended the meeting. Their objectives regarding the refugee crisis and the armed conflict differed from one another. But they agreed on a multilateral response. Southeast Asian states granted temporary asylum while other states offered resettlement places. How did the conference reach a consensus? The public had high expectations about this meeting. And political observers were doubtful that states could find an effective solution. Yet the conference reached a successful compromise. It provided an effective and sustainable response to the humanitarian emergency. It also stroke the perfect balance in the occupation of Cambodia. It punished Vietnam without compromising Thailand’s territorial integrity any further. 

High Expectations from The Public

The announcement of a conference on Southeast Asian refugees attracted a lot of attention. The public had high expectations. Members of the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian diaspora mobilized to raise awareness on the plight of refugees. In Paris, Khmer and Vietnamese organized demonstrations on the Champs de Mars. They wanted to convince the French government to welcome more refugees. Associations elsewhere also lobbied their government to protect those refugees. The day before the opening of the conference, a group in the United States purchased a full page advertising in The Washington Post. The text urged their representatives to increase the resettlement quotas.12

Members of the diaspora also expressed their political views about the crisis. Vietnamese paraded with the flag of the defunct Republic of Vietnam. Khmers in France sent petitions to Kurt Waldheim. It demanded the Secretary-General to invite a Khmer representative to the conference. In their views, neither the People’s Republic of Kampuchea nor Democratic Kampuchea could do it. Prince Sihanouk was the only person they entrusted to represent the Khmer people.3 Refugees were not passive victims fleeing persecution. In the contested process of state-making in Southeast Asia, they were the voice of an alternative nation state. 

For almost everyone else, the conference in Geneva was not the place for making political claims. In fact, the refugee crisis was bridging the political divide. In France, the dispute between Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre illustrated the irreconcilable differences between the right and the left. But after thirty years of animosity, the two philosophers went together to meet Giscard d’Estaing to demand action for the refugees. Aron, recalling the brief truce between the two, could see in Sartre’s eyes that the dispute was not over.4 As for Sartre, he found it legitimate to work with bourgeois intellectuals if the ultimate purpose was to defend human rights.5 This gave the impression that ideological enemies could transcend their difference to save refugees.6 In the United States, the humanitarian response to the refugees also brought the left and the right together. Progressive advocates of human rights and neoconservatives both supported the protection of refugees, although for different reasons.7

Like political opposites in these countries, this international meeting could bring states to overcome their antagonism to serve the universal interest of human rights.8 But more experienced observers did not share this optimism. 

Media Pessimism

Many observers feared that the meeting could end in an impasse. French television news program foreshadowed a strong confrontation between states. The prospects of an acrimonious debate also loomed when the Secretary General met representatives of Laos and the Soviet Union who opposed their status of observers.9 Even after states representatives took the floor, no one was certain that these declarations would materialize into firm commitments and swift allocations of funds and resources. 

Striking The Right Balance Between Humanitarian and Political Interests

What made the difference was the campaign the United Kingdom and the United States launched in the weeks before the conference. Most states came up with firm proposals, including an accurate number of places and money for the UNHCR. So the conference was not a succession of statements. In the following days, states met in working groups to finalize the details of their contributions. 

The conference also gave an effective response to the ASEAN states. By creating Special processing centers, they did not engage their responsibility to protect the incoming population. The UNHCR also guaranteed in a formal agreement that there would be no residual cases. This meant that ensured that finding resettlement places was not ASEAN countries’ problem. Moreover, this solution allowed them to remain uninvolved in the Third Indochina War. Unlike Thailand, which was leaning towards the American and Chinese interests, many ASEAN countries remained suspicious of Beijing. That Vietnam was firmly opposing its Northern neighbour was useful to them. Many believed it served as a buffer against China.10 So the success of this conference meant that they would not have to become further involved into the armed conflict to get the support they needed.

This balance also suited the United States. After all, the purpose of the conference was to find a middle ground. On the one hand, Washington could not leave Hanoi unpunished for its occupation of Cambodia. On the other one, the White House could not escalate the conflict further. Washington did not want to create an anti-Vietnamese alliance that the Chinese wanted. Because this would expand the armed conflict to Thailand as well.11 So protecting refugee was the perfect compromise. It inflicted a psychological blow to Vietnam and the Soviet Union. This symbolic gesture was powerful enough, because a large part of the international community took part in this public bullying. Yet it would remain superficial enough to avoid an escalation of the armed conflict. 

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References

  1. UNHCR/F11/2/39_391_46_GEN_d. Full Page Advertisement of the Refugee International’s Message to the Senators and Representatives of the U.S. Congress published in the Washington Post, 19 July 1979.
  2. On the activism of the Vietnamese diaspora, see Lipman, Jana K. In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.
  3. UNHCR/F11/2/39_391_46_GEN_b. Pétition des Khmers réfugiés, Paris France à Son Excellence Kurt Waldheim, 10 juillet 1979, UNHCR/F11/2/39_391_46_GEN_b. Pétition des Khmers réfugiés, Vénissieux France à Son Excellence Kurt Waldheim, 13 juillet 1979.
  4. Aron, Raymond. Mémoires. Paris: Julliard, 1983.
  5. Paoli, Paul-François. “Jean-Paul Sartre / Raymond Aron : Le Match du siècle.” Le Figaro, 4 août 2017.
  6. This myth persists to this day in many French retrospectives on the Southeast Asian refugee crisis. See Jallot, Nicolas. “L’île De Lumière, Quand La France Sauve Les Boat People.” (2017): 65 min.
  7. Bon Tempo, Carl. Americans At the Gate, the United States and Refugees During the Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
  8. For this candid interpretation of the conference, see Waldheim, Kurt. In the Eye of the Storm, a Memoir. Bethesda: Adler & Adler, 1986.
  9. For details, see the forthcoming article in the Journal of K studies.
  10. It was their position in April 1979, FRUS 1977–1980 Volume XXII Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “Telegram From the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, 24 April 1979.” 460–65.
  11. Margaret Thatcher Foundation/PREM19/604 f209. “Vietnam: Fco to Ukmis Geneva (“meeting With Vice-President Mondale: Indo-China Refugees” [Account of Carrington’s Discussion With Mondale], 20 July 1979.”