Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XXII, Southeast Asia and the Pacific

137. Memorandum From the U.S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs (Clark) to President Carter¹

Washington, June 20, 1979

SUBJECT

• Indochinese Refugees: Tokyo and Beyond

I. Tokyo Summit

The exodus of refugees from Indochina has reached such staggering dimensions as to pose major political and security problems for Southeast Asia as well as a refugee problem of proportions not matched since Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. In May alone, 65,000 refugees found sanctuary in the ASEAN nations and Hong Kong. 10,000 more may have gone to China. The issue will inevitably assume an important place on the agenda of the Tokyo Summit.² We suggest that you make several key points to stress both the seriousness of the problems and point the way toward how the world might cope with it.

—We cannot individually or collectively ignore such a staggering humanitarian problem, one which is already creating serious problems for Southeast Asia and promises to get even worse without urgent action.

—One part of our effort should be heavy pressure upon Vietnam to stop treating its citizens so inhumanely that many of them actually pay for the privilege of fleeing, knowing that they may well die or remain for years in refugee camps.

—We should press Hanoi to create humane conditions whereby the number wanting to flee Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia will decrease and those that do will feel safe in waiting until they can leave gradually under controlled conditions.

—But we should recognize that pressure is unlikely to change the fundamental nature of the regime in Hanoi. We must therefore also consider how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of refugees now in camps, on the seas, or likely to leave in the months ahead.

—We need a much greater international effort to do three things: (1) to ensure the extension of temporary asylum; (2) to increase permanent resettlement; and (3) to meet the large costs involved. This will require at least an immediate doubling of annual permanent resettlement numbers (from 120,000 worldwide, exclusive of the PRC, to 240,000), and a quadrupling of funding for temporary asylum ($100 million from all nations to $400 million) in 1980. Similar international resettlement rates and financial contributions will be required for years to come.

—The United States is prepared to do its part, and more. But such an effort needs to be spread more widely around the world. In addition to the UNHCR we should also enlist the help of international agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to help with financing resettlement, particularly in developing nations.

—After the Tokyo Summit, we believe that Vietnam should be called to account right away in the Security Council. The Soviets will veto any resolution directed at Vietnam but world attention and pressure on Vietnam will be maximized. If the Soviets choose to link themselves with Vietnam’s behavior, they may share the public opprobrium. The UNSC should be followed by a conference under UN auspices before the end of July, aimed at agreement on a program of practical steps to increase temporary asylum, permanent resettlement and financial support. It should be carefully prepared. To this end, I suggest we agree to appoint a group of several—perhaps four—people as a preparatory committee (one selected by the Government of Japan; one jointly by the governments of the U.S., Canada and Australia; one by ASEAN; and one by the European Community) to work with Secretary General Waldheim and High Commissioner Hartling.

—We believe we should make a special effort to ensure the PRC both participates in such a conference and in the resettlement programs. The ethnic Chinese background of so many of the refugees makes their resettlement in China easier than in many other areas. The non-participation by China is likely to make it more difficult politically for other countries to participate at the increased levels required.

II. Scenario

After generating momentum at Tokyo, we envisage proceeding down parallel tracks of pressuring Vietnam in the Security Council and by other political and economic means, and of preparing for an international conference on greater assistance for the refugees. Cy Vance’s talks at Bali with ASEAN and then in Canberra (ANZUS)³ will supplement the Tokyo Summit discussion by maximizing Asian support for both tracks, although some of the ASEAN states (especially Indonesia and Malaysia) may still be reluctant to condemn Vietnam formally. A possible pressure point would be redirection of Western bilateral and multilateral aid from Hanoi to the refugee program, also helping finance the latter. (The Japanese would be the key to such an effort, but they have recently told us they will not cut off bilateral assistance on the basis of the refugee problem. Also, the Swedes told us yesterday that they are now ready to make a demarche to Hanoi, and consider additional steps.)

It is our judgment that this scenario will maximize the chances of at least medium-term action to deal with the refugee problem, although success cannot be safely predicted. In the short term, however, it should produce a renewed willingness by the ASEAN countries and Hong Kong to provide temporary asylum, if they are convinced these actions will yield concrete action to relieve them of some of their short-term burdens and long-term fears.

If an international conference is to approach a doubled international resettlement intake, we must be able to announce a 40% increase in our own program, and be prepared to submit a budget request to cover it. You should also be aware of the large projected increases in financial support for the temporary asylum program of the UNHCR to accommodate perhaps 700,000 refugees by year’s end. Initial decisions on United States admission rates and financial contributions will need to be made in connection with the work of the preparatory group, after you have returned from Tokyo.

It is, in any case, imperative that we seek actions that might stop the present tragedy unfolding in the South China Sea and on the Cambodian border. The above is a minimum program, measured against the size of the problem.

BACKGROUND AND RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS

There may be as many as 1.5 million more people yet to be expelled or to flee from Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos—unless conditions in Indochina change radically. At current rates, allowing for seasonal fluctuations in the refugee flow, we may expect over half a million new refugees to seek to add themselves to the existing population of 330,000 in the ASEAN countries and Hong Kong within a year, with only 120,000 being resettled elsewhere. These Southeast Asian countries will not accept such a burden; political upheavals could ensue; hundreds of thousands of refugees would die; tens of thousands could come straight to U.S. territories (e.g., Guam).

Condemnation by the international community may embarrass Hanoi, but its embarrassment threshold is astonishingly high. We will seek ASEAN support to press those countries now providing bilateral aid to Vietnam (about $130 million, principally from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Japan) to shift their aid to support Indochina refugees. We will also attempt to divert the approximately $150 million in multilateral aid to Vietnam (e.g., IBRD, ADB) to refugee relief. Even were we to be entirely successful in these efforts, however—and we doubt we will be—the Soviet Union can easily offset any financial losses to Hanoi. No other foreign aid nor trade is essential to Vietnam’s military buildup and economic survival.

The ASEAN countries and Hong Kong are clearly at or near the limits of their ability to cope. They see themselves threatened with large, indigestible permanent communities of Vietnamese/Chinese already creating very serious economic and social and political problems and posing a potential security threat. Only a strong positive response by the international community both in pressuring Vietnam and in providing greatly stepped up resettlement can prevent massive loss of life. Such an international effort will inevitably draw some additional refugees from Indochina, but the alternative is to sit idly by while people die.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Poul Hartling, has suggested to our Ambassador at Geneva⁴ that he might be able, by carefully targeted approaches to specific countries in Europe and Latin America, to double the current annual resettlement rate by the international community from 120,000 to 240,000 per year. He suggests that, as part of this effort, the United States could increase our resettlement rate from 7,000 per month to 10,000 per month, thus reducing the United States percentage from about 70% to 50% of the worldwide total. The first year combined cost for State and HEW would be an estimated $86 million. This relatively modest increase in the U.S. program, leading to much larger increases by other countries and placing our program on something approaching the 50–50 matching basis proposed by Hartling, would have considerable political appeal. The church groups, the Jewish community and organized labor, all of whom are already pressing the Attorney General to exercise his authority to double our admission rate from 7,000 to 14,000 per month, and the Congress are suddenly showing new sympathy for major increases.

Nevertheless, at 240,000 resettlements by the international community per year, it could take six to seven years to remove all eligible refugees from the countries of first asylum. This might mean the U.S. admissions of Indochinese would have to continue at the rate of 10,000 per month until 1985 or 1986, raising questions about job competition and burdening local social services.

Nor can resettlement by other countries at the proposed rate of 10,000 per month be achieved without cost. Substantial resettlement of refugees in developing countries, particularly in Latin America, presupposes the international financing of economic development projects based on refugee labor. A special fund with an initial capitalization of $300–$500 million would be required to underwrite this effort, although some funds might be available from the IBRD and other multilateral institutions. Our share, over a two-three year period could total $50–$100 million.

In order to help bridge the gap between the rate of permanent resettlement and the numbers in camps awaiting resettlement, there is an urgent need to follow up on the Jakarta Conference agreement of May 15⁵ to establish one or more isolated island Refugee Processing Centers (RPCs), where refugees can wait several years for resettlement without contact and friction with local populations. What is required is a system of RPC’s capable of accommodating hundreds of thousands of people. The ASEAN nations, and possibly the PRC (which is considering Hartling’s suggestion that it do so), must be encouraged to offer these. To make them work, the international community, including the U.S., would have to be willing to make good faith commitments on resettlement levels three to six years in the future.

Apart from any increases we may make in our resettlement program, we cannot realistically avoid huge increases in the amount of money we contribute to the UNHCR for temporary maintenance of refugees from Indochina. Costs may quadruple in the coming year, but the alternative to meeting them is to allow scores of thousands to die of malnutrition and disease. We have had a policy of contributing 50 per cent of these costs. We should make a major effort to get Japan to increase their percentage substantially from its present 25%, but there is little alternative to continuing at 50% ourselves if we wish others to commit themselves to quadruple their own contributions. We estimate that this could involve a FY–1980 budget amendment of approximately $225 million, including a network of RPCs to relieve pressures.

Between now and your return from Tokyo we will be refining the cost estimates noted above and consulting quietly, on a contingency basis, with members of Congress. The two Appropriation Committees will obviously be the most important. Based upon these consultations and the views you and Cy bring back from Tokyo and Southeast Asia we shall prepare a series of options for your decision before the international process has proceeded so far as to commit us, at least implicitly, to something beyond the financial limits that can be sustained by our humanitarian concern.

We will have to focus domestic political attention broadly on the immense human suffering involved in order to mobilize public support for substantially increased levels of funding and commitment to increased levels of refugee acceptance. The Security Council and UN Conference will help in achieving this but you may have to personally engage yourself in the effort as well.

At OMB request, rough estimates of the costs of the initiatives discussed in this paper are appended.⁶

1. Source: Department of State, Office of the Secretariat Staff, Records of Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State, 1977–1980, Lot 84D241, President’s Breakfast, 5/1/79–8/31/80. Confidential.
2. See footnote 6, Document 136.
3. See footnote 7, Document 136.
4. William Vanden Heuvel.
5. See footnote 7, Document 136.
6. Not attached.