Refugee History.

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Exploring the foundations of Philippine refugee policy towards Vietnamese refugees

From the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975 through to the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled from what had been Indochina. Their exodus triggered an international response. The Philippines, like other Southeast Asian states and Hong Kong, was a country of first asylum. Refugees were allowed to stay temporarily until resettlement elsewhere.

Under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (1965-1986), the Philippine government laid the foundations of the country’s refugee policy: the extension of temporary asylum ‘on humanitarian grounds’. The Philippines at this time was not party to the UN 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Any admission of refugees was made at the discretion of the president, per the provisions of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940

My research explores the political responses to the presence of Indochinese refugees in the Philippines. Most refugees were Vietnamese, but there were also displaced Cambodians and Laotians. When thinking about these displaced groups, the use of camps comes to mind since these spaces emerged across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Two camps existed in the Philippines: the Philippine First Asylum Camp and the Philippine Refugee Processing Centre. These camps, however, were only established in 1979 and 1980, respectively. And so here I draw attention to 1975 – the very beginnings of the Indochinese refugee ‘crisis’ and Marcos’ response to the first groups of displaced Vietnamese. Looking back to this year adds nuance to the state’s role in and understandings of the refugee ‘crisis’ that took place prior to the UNHCR-led international response that began in 1978-1979. I also build on Jana Lipman’s recent post, which suggests a re-thinking of this period and the overlooked role of the Vietnamese diaspora.

The first refugees arrived in the country at the end of April 1975; they entered the archipelago in two ways. First, thousands came as part of the American withdrawal from Saigon where American officials temporarily accommodated them in two American bases in the archipelago: the Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base. Second, hundreds of Vietnamese refugees arrived on boats and landed across the archipelago’s western coastline – they have been referred to as the ‘boat people’. Some of these ‘boat people’ also included dependents of Filipinos who had been living in Vietnam.

The government’s response to refugees was complex, made on an ad hoc basis and embedded with politics. Based on impressions and reports from UNHCR personnel in June and July 1975, there was no clear refugee policy for these first arrivals. A lack of clarity existed between the American and Philippine authorities; both maintained that the other was responsible for refugees who arrived in the Philippines. Washington acknowledged that any refugees in its bases were its responsibility, and so were later taken to the US for resettlement. Those landing elsewhere in the Philippines, however, were deemed by the Americans as Marcos’ responsibility. Rejecting this, the Marcos government asserted that any refugees who landed on Philippine shores were America’s responsibility because of the Vietnam war. Reinforcing its position, the Philippine government did not immediately grant temporary asylum to refugees, but instead shuttled them to the American bases. 

UNHCR documents from July 1975 disclose another example of the government’s ad hoc refugee policy at the local level where responses did not always align with the government’s position. Arrivals landing in the province of Batangas, south of Manila, received aid from the local government. The mayor suggested that refugees be allowed to settle on an island he personally owned. Manila disagreed. In spite of assistance given by the local authorities, the government made it clear that providing relief did not equate to the granting of asylum. At the same time, these responses did not always fit with the intentions of refugees; when telling local officials that they wanted to resettle in the US, the Philippine authorities allowed them to sail on to the American bases when their boats were seaworthy.

These instances show that government officials were key actors in the refugee regime during these early months in 1975. UNHCR by contrast, did not play an active role in the Philippines, framing the refugee situation as being jointly dealt with by the Philippine and American governments. One reason was that the international refugee agency did not want to be drawn into governmental politics with the host state, or Cold War conflicts with the US, for risk of jeopardising its main source of funding.

This would all soon change. For Marcos, the use of American bases as informal ‘refugee camps’ created problems for his new foreign policy aim of establishing diplomatic relations with the new Vietnamese government. Thus, in July 1975 negotiations with the American government resulted in moving refugees to Guam. Despite this move, Marcos began extending temporary asylum on ‘humanitarian grounds’. The Philippines, along with other member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, agreed to temporarily admit refugees with the expectation that Western states would resettle them.

Granting temporary asylum meant that the government took on the responsibility of protecting refugees. Catholic organisations, which UNHCR funded, also provided support. Together they delivered immediate relief and helped to find resettlement options. UNHCR also noted that the government upheld the principle of non-refoulement – no refugees were turned away or repatriated back to Vietnam. Without ratifying the Convention or Protocol, the Philippine government nevertheless abided by their principles.

At this point, however, UNHCR did not recognise those fleeing Indochina as ‘refugees’ under its mandate. The agency perceived the exodus of thousands as an ‘aftermath of war rather than as the beginning of a new refugee crisis’ – mirroring the Philippine government’s initial positioning. It was only in 1978-1979 that UNHCR decided to label them as prima facie refugees and began taking a leading role in the Philippines and the broader international response to refugees from Indochina. 

In 1975 efforts to address the presence of Indochinese refugees were already taking place in the Philippines. The Philippine government’s response was not a purely humanitarian gesture. Politics and national interests influenced refugee policy, creating a fluid and decentralised system between local and national governments which, as the Batangas case showed, enacted different refugee policies on the ground. Refugees were also caught between Filipino and American officials, who maintained the other was responsible for refugees. Meanwhile, 1975 also shows us that despite not ratifying the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol, the Philippine government did not seek to return refugees. One important foundation of Philippine refugee policy was also laid down in 1975: the country’s status as a country of first asylum. This informed the international refugee regime’s ‘solution’ of resettling Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees in Western countries. Thus, to understand the international response to the Indochinese refugee ‘crisis’, we need to explore the policies that were emerging in 1975 when the first refugees arrived in countries across Southeast Asia.

The header image shows South Vietnamese refugees on the deck of a U.S. Navy vessel. Operation Frequent Wind, the final US military operation in Saigon, began 29th April 1975. During a nearly constant barrage of explosions, the Marines loaded American and Vietnamese civilians, who feared for their lives, onto helicopters that brought them to waiting aircraft carriers. The Navy vessels brought them to the Philippines and eventually to Camp Pendleton, California. Source: WIkimedia Commons.