Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

90 Chapter 3
These and the general conditions of hardship caused large groups to
flee the New Economic Zones to Ho CM Minh City, where many, having
no home, lived on the streets. In order to avoid being sent back to the
NEZ, many saw themselves without any other viable option than to flee
the country. 190
5. Mandatory military conscription
By the end of the 1970s, the desertion rate from the Vietnamese Army
neared 20 percent in Saigon The situation worsened with the border wars
between Vietnam and China in early 1979. 191 This meant that from 1979
on there was a high percentage of "draft evaders," young single males,
among the boat people fleeing from Vietnam. The military invasion of the
Vietnamese armed forces into Cambodia in 1979 also necessitated
military conscription. Today there are still 150,000 troops stationed there
(even though the current Vietnamese authorities have announced their
withdrawal.) 192 Today young single men still escape in large numbers to
avoid being drafted.
6. Incompetence in government 193
Officials with shortcomings in management abilities drove out many of
their South Vietnamese predecessors, who were then given inferior positions
in public administration, teaching, and other government services.
Many of these former top officials had initially hoped to be able to stay
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190 ZDWF, Schriftenreihe 23, p. 31.
191 Dyer/Clark, "Vietnamese Boat People Crisis" Draft September 1986, p. 10.
192 "Hanoi Plans 50,000-Man Pullout from Cambodia", The New York Times,
26 May 1988.
193 "A government that is quite incapable of making or implementing decisions
or of controlling its administrative apparatus ... may be deemed
incompetent... . Property will be seized and families disrupted...Refugees,
sometimes in very large numbers, will result from this sort of breakdown.
Even if it does not involve a great deal of violence, such a situation will
impel people to leave in order to es cape the predictable decline in the quality
of life and - in poor countries - famine." Gordenker, Refugees in
International Politics, 1987, p.76. Though Gordenker does not refer directly
to Vietnam, the analysis is pertinent in this context. The recently announced
acute food shortage in the Northern provinces underlines real possibilities of
famine and other serious economic problems, which are compelling the
Vietnamese authorities to review their policies. See "Vietnam Picks New
Premier; Food Shortages Are Reported," New York Times, 23 June 1988.
Analytical Discussion 91
but felt that their abilities and experience were under-utilized to do so. 194 At
the same time, factories are operating at 40 percent capacity.
Collectivization of farms in the southern part of Vietnam was a measure
widely rejected by South Vietnamese fanners. But already in 1981,
approximately 31 percent of the country had been organized in collective
farms.195 Among the boat people, there were many who had been initially
optimistic about the prospects of staying, living, and working with some success.
But large groups of people became discouraged by the incompetence and
underutilization of the country's human and natural resources. In recognition of
these shortcomings, the new Vietnamese regime has put into place experienced
and competent economic advisors who have been developing reforms in banking,
fiscal policy, and investment and strategies for economic development. 196
Should these reforms materialize, this factor might induce fewer people to escape
from Vietnam than up to now, and offer even reasonably bright prospects for the
eventual return of persons not found eligible for refuge status in case a screening
process starts.
7. Lack of freedom of political opinion and religion
Upon arrival in the country of first asylum, UNHCR would interview each
family, or at least the head of the family unit, for registration for resettlement.
The registration form contains a section on the reason for flight. Most
interviewees would respond: "We cannot say what we think and what we like,
we cannot live under the Communists, we have no freedom for our religion. " 197
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194 Interview of a human rights worker with Vietnamese refugees in Malaysia in 1978.
195 ZDWF, p. 31.
196 Dr. Nguyen Xuan Oanh (Chief of the Bureau of Economic Research and Planning,
People's Committee Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), Lecture at Harvard University, 3
October 1988. Mr. Oanh, a trained economist at Harvard in 1954, was Acting Prime
Minister of Vietnam in 1965/66, and became involved with the new government
after 1975 as economic advisor before assuming his current position.
197 See St Cartmail, Exodus Indochina, Exeter, 1983, p. 233-34. Reports about the
questionnaires that each arriving group had to respond to on arrival in Singapore,
which had the purpose to ask specifically what they did not like about the regime and
how they felt their freedom of opinion and religion had been jeopardized. More than
two thirds of the arrivals in Singapore between August 1978 and July 1981 indicated
that they had suffered serious curtailment of their political and religious (both
Catholic and Buddhist) freedom.