Snehashish Mitra (biltu0717@gmail.com) is a research assistant at Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.
As Aylan Kurdi, the three year old Syrian boy of Kurdis
ethnic background lied lifeless on a sea beach of Turkey, it depicted the
desperation of over 4 million Syrian refugees. The image circulated round the
globe prompted international response over the issue of rehabilitating the
Syrian refugee. The crisis also evoked a similar trajectory of events in
another part of the world in a different time involving the ‘Vietnamese Boat People’.
As Thuan Le Elston, a member of the editorial board of the daily USA TODAY of
Vietnamese background opines, it might be necessary to take a look back at the
case to Vietnamese Boat People to find a reasonable solution for the Syrian
refugee crisis.
When the Americans lost the Vietnam War
there were many citizens of Vietnam, especially in South Vietnam who did not
wish to stay in Vietnam. Those with influence were airlifted out by the
Americans but many had to make do with crowding onto leaky boats and making the
journey from Vietnam to the gulf of Thailand. Nearly 800,000 Vietnamese fled by
boat, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In doing so they
unwittingly wrote themselves into modern pirate history. The Vietnamese populace
who tried to flee Vietnam over boat is termed as ‘Vietnamese Boat People’; they
seemed to encapsulate all the suffering Vietnam had suffered from1965 to 1975. Despite the end of
the Vietnam War, tragedy for the people of Vietnam
continued into 1978-79. The term ‘Boat People’ not only applies to the refugees
who fled Vietnam but also to the people of Cambodia and Laos who did the same
but tend to come under the same umbrella term. The term ‘Vietnamese Boat
People’ tends to be associated with only those in the former South who fled the
new Communist government established in post-war Vietnam. The exodus was the
biggest in peacetime the world had seen. The boat people chose to face the
adversities of the sea and the pirates rather than live under communist
regime with the genuine prospect of attending reeducation camps and face persecution.
About 10% of the boat people died without ever reaching shore, from pirate
attacks, drowning or starvation. Those who survived, overwhelmed Vietnam’s
neighbors as well as Western nations where the refugees wanted to resettle.
