Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

134 Chapters
600,000 people to be refugees in mid- 1965) called for U.S. efforts to
"enlist the humanitarian aid of other countries." 313
In February 1966, full responsibility for refugee affairs was given to
the newly created Special Commissariat for Refugees in the Office of the
Prime Minister of South Vietnam. A year and a half later, in November
1967, the Special Commissariat was merged with the Ministry of Social
Welfare, taking over responsibility for refugee relief. The Ministry had
staff in the country's four military zones, each comprising a number of
provinces.
The appointed US AID Refugee Coordinator in Saigon was assigned
to coordinate the U.S. relief effort with that of about twenty religious and
nonsectarian U.S. and international nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs), which were assisting with important contributions in cash, goods
and services. But the refugee problem was considered part of the overall
"pacification" problem - where war strategy and refugee policy met and
clashed. By the end of 1965, the NGOs anticipated that about one million
refugees would need assistance and protection. 314 To cope with the sheer
numbers of these huge human flows in a devastating war situation, these
organizations developed important fund-raising activities to assist the
refugees with goods and services wherever possible.
In June 1967 the refugee function of US AID was transferred to the
joint civil and military staff of Civil Operation and Revolutionary Development
Support (CORDS), within the the U.S. Military Assistance
Command - Vietnam (MACV), the combat military side of MACV under
the command of the Deputy CORDS Chief Robert A. Komer (later
William E. Colby) who was under the command of General Abrams, who
later replaced General Westmoreland as Commander-in-Chief of the
whole U.S. MACV. 315 Protection and assistance were henceforth mainly
under military control, which is inherently unsuited to deal with such
primarily humanitarian matters.
The refugee problem in Vietnam became more and more
unmanageable, and the needs so great that in 1966, Senator Edward Kennedy,
who was Chairman of the Subcommittee to investigate problems
_______________________
313 U.S. Congress. Refugee Problems in South Vietnam, Report of the
Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, made by its Subcommittee to
Investigate Problems Connected with refugees and Escapees, 89 th Cong.,
2nd. Session, 4 March 1966, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington: 1966, p. 4.
314 U.S. Congress. Refugee Problems in South Vietnam, 4 March 1966, p. 7.
315 Louis Wiesner, Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and OAer War
Victims in Vietnam, 1954-1975, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988, p. 90
Analytical Discussion 135
connected with refugees and escapees at that time, recommended to the Senate
Judiciary Committee that greater efforts be made to enlist the support of the
international community and intergovernmental organizations. At the same time,
Kennedy recommended the use of the United Nations and its specialized
agencies as channels of assistance for the dispossessed, and he reported to the
Subcommittee that he had already met earlier that year with a number of United
Nations officials: Secretary-General U Thant; Under Secretary C.V. Narasimhan;
Miss Julia Render-son, Director of the United Nations Bureau for Social Affairs;
Mr. Sherwood Moe of UNICEF; and Dr. Arthur Gaglotti of UNESCO. Kennedy
also initiated conversations with Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, and established informal contacts with
representatives of the World Health Organization. 316 The purpose of these
contacts was to solicit support for humanitarian assistance to refugees and
displaced persons within Vietnam.
The 1966 recommendation by Senator Kennedy to enlist international
humanitarian assistance did not materialize, despite the United Nations' readiness
to help. 317 The major sticking point was, ironically, resistance on the part of the
U.S. government, which tolerated the efforts of most NGOs to assist the
uprooted and displaced people but looked unfavorably upon any other projects
other than the modest ones being implemented by UNICEF and UNESCO. 318
Deliberate creation of refugees?
As the war dragged on, the line between the incidental creation of refugees as a
byproduct of large-scale military operations and the deliberate uprooting of
people to destabilize Vietcong held areas became
____________________________
316 U.S. Congress. Refugee Problems in South Vietnam. Washington: 1966, p. 33.
317 Personal interview with Zia Rizvi, former Special Assistant to the High Commissioner
for Refugees Sadruddin Aga Khan, on 27 March 1988. Rizvi suggested that
international organizations could have helped more at that time in Vietnam. He also
indicated that international organizations at times too easily give in to political
pressures, tending to hide behind the rationale of scarce resources. The pressures in
this case appear to have originated mainly from the United States for not involving
the United Nations with major projects in Vietnam at an earlier stage.
318 Personal interview with Mr. Louis A. Wiesner, author of Victims and Survivors,
Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Vietnam, 1954-175; New York:
Greenwood Press, 1988.