TNAG-1972-FCO40-2805-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation-1989 — Page 85

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

dlone

large residual populations of displaced persons. This commitment

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