it is the intent of this paper to provide background to the
anticipated conference, highlighting the major issues already
under consideration as well as additional issues requiring
international attention.
THE REFUGEE SITUATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA:
Since the 1975 victories of communist forces in Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos, close to two million refugees and displaced
persons have sought asylum in neighboring countries in Southeast
Asia or abroad. Some 1.5 million persons have found permanent
resettlement in the United States, China, Canada, Australia and
Western Europe, with about 420,000 remaining in Southeast Asian
camps and holding centers, the vast majority in Thailand.
The 1979 conference in Geneva established the basic
international framework for responding to the exodus of refugees
from the countries of Indochina. Since that time, the refugee
problem has essentially been managed by means of an arrangement
whereby neighboring countries in the region have been willing to
offer limited temporary asylum (often referred to as "first
asylum") to persons fleeing Indochina, contingent upon a
sustained commitment by "third countries" (the major Western
industrialized countries in the West, and China and Japan) to
ensure that they not be left to shoulder alone the burden of
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large residual populations of displaced persons. This commitment
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