PEOPLE

73s Boat People
refugee problem was tough-minded. It consistently turned away
boat people from Vietnam unless they were guaranteed rapid
resettlanent, an the grounds that Singapore was overcrowded
already and would become a magnet for refugem if it relaxed its ban.
'You've got to grow callouses on your heart m you just bled to
death,' Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said. In a speech on 17 February
1979, he foreign minister, Sinnathamby Rajaram, put forwud
an argument which other MEAN governments were to take
increasingly seriously as the year advanced and the numbers of boat
people arriving in South-East Asian waters reached torrential proportions:
The flow of boat people pea the nonammunist world, including the
cwneies, with s moral dilemma. We could respond on humnimrian and
mml grounds by a cceg and resettling thew dcsperare people. But by
doing sr, we would not only be encouraging thw responsible to force even
more refugees to Ase but elno unwittingly demonsmtc that a policy of inhumanity
[the Vicmmesc government's] doel p y divided. Not only that, but
lose countries which give way m their humanitarian instincm would saddle
themrlves with unmanageable poPticPI, mill and economic probiems that
the sudden sbmrption of hundreds of hands of alim pcoplcs must inevimbly
bring in its wake.
While suspecting China's long-term intentions towards South-
East Asia, Singapore was equally wary of Vietnam and Russia.
Singapore wanted ASBAN to give Thailand assurances of support in
the face of the Ind+Chim crisis; otherwise, it feared, Thailand
might kcomc excessively dependent on China. Singapore also
wanted ASEAN to speak out and put pressure on Vitmam to change
its policies so that people would not feel impel14 to leave by the
backdoor sea route. In his New Year message for 1979, Prime Minister
kt called for an international campaign to prevent the exodus.
h t suffering in Indo-China had ken the result of acts committed
in the heat of war:
This latest d u s of 'boot pcopk' and 'ship people' is the result of aco of
cold calculation, measured in gold, and long after rhc heat of battie has
cooled. What is ominous is hat unless world leaders and leader-writers register
their outrage st his cynical digposal of unw~ntcd citizens, many more
victims will be sent off on packed hats and ships,
The ASBAN country most seriously affected by the deluge of boat
people from Viemm was Malaysia. UntiI law 1978, refugees wanting
to land thm pending resettlement ovmeas could usually do so
without too much difficulty, Malaysian fishermen and villagers
often helped the newcornem, sometimes for a fee but also from spontancws
compassion. However, the tidal-wave dimensions of the
refugee inflow changed Malaysia's md. The influx generated
undercurrents of politiaal and communal tension in Malaysia. In
1969 the country's multi-racial, multi-religious fabric had been
stitched together again with care after the delicate balance between
Chinese of immigrant st&
and indigenous Malays had been shat-
tered by race riots in Kuala Lurnpur. The population was now about
14 million, the ove~rhelming majority living in peninsular Malaysia
(as distinct from the eastern states of Sabah and Smrawak) where
Muslim Malays (53 per cent) barely ournumber non-Muslim races
- mainly the Chinese (35 per cent) and Indians (1 1 per cent) - the
forebears of whom had arrived to work in mines, plantations and
towns ovet the past 150 years. As in other parts of &uth-EPS~ Asia,
the Chinese beaame influential in the country's commerce, trade and
finance. This caused resentment from Malays whose tr~dilionrl
vccuptions were farming and fishing.
The refugees from Vietnam, more than half of whom were of
Chine* descent, could hardly have chosen a more sensitive place
to land than the nonh-east coast of peninsular Malaysia, The three
states there - Kelantan, Trengganu and Pahang - which face the
Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, are all overwhelmingly
,Malay in composition and strictly isl~mic in character. Malaysia
(whose state religion is Islam) had accepted more than 1500 Muslim
refugees from Kampuchea after 1975, and allowed an estimated
100000 Filipino Muslims emping civil war in the southern Philippines
to take refuge in the cast Malaysian state of Sabah, But the
flood of so many non-Muslim aliens from Vietnam created a backlash
in constnative Malay communities along the north-eaat coast.
Ry late 1978 some Malay villagers were stoning incoming boats and
the men, women and children on them. There were rumours in the
kanrpon~s (villages) that MnIaysia would never be able to get rid of
the refugees. Thc government was accused of allowing a form of
backdoor immigration (it had encouraged this kind of alarmism by