Monday, April 2, 2012

Người Việt Hải Ngoại

According to the 2000 Census, there are 1,122,528 people who identify themselves as Vietnamese alone or 1,223,736 in combination with other ethnicities, ranking fourth among the Asian American groups. Of those, 447,032 (39.8%) live in California and 134,961 (12.0%) inTexas. The largest number of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam is found in Orange County, California—totalling 135,548. Vietnamese American businesses are ubiquitous in Little Saigon, located in Westminster and Garden Grove, where they constitute 30.7 and 21.4 percent of the population, respectively. States such as Washington, Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Louisiana have fast growing Vietnamese populations. The San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle metropolitan area, Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, Northern Virginia,Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Houston metropolitan area have sizable Vietnamese communities. Recently, the Vietnamese immigration pattern has shifted to other states like Oklahoma (Oklahoma City in particular) and Oregon (Portland in particular).

As many as one million people who are five years and older speak 
Vietnamese at home—making it the seventh-most spoken language in the United States.

As refugees, Vietnamese Americans have some of the highest rates of naturalization.
[3] In the 2006 American Community Survey, 72% of foreign-born Vietnamese are naturalized US citizens; this combined with the 36% who are born in the United States makes 82% of them United States citizen in total. Of those born outside the United States, 46.5% entered before 1990, 38.8% between 1990 and 2000, and 14.6% entered after 2000.[4]




Growth of Vietnamese Americans (alone)
YearNumber
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Đầu thập niên 1970 có khoảng 100.000 người Việt sống ngoài Việt Nam, chủ yếu tập trung tại các nước láng giềng (Lào, Campuchia, Thái Lan, Miến Điện, v.v.) và Pháp. Con số này tăng vọt sau biến cố 30 tháng 4 năm 1975 và số quốc gia có người Việt định cư cũng tăng theo; họ ra đi theo đợt di tản tháng 4 năm 1975, theo các đợt thuyền nhân và theo Chương trình Ra đi có Trật tự. Đầu thập niên 1990 sự sụp đổ của khối Đông Âu  Liên Xô đã góp phần vào khối người Việt định cư tại các nước này. Như vậy, ngoài Việt Nam hiện nay có khoảng 3 triệu người Việt sinh sống trên hơn 100 quốc gia ở năm châu lục.

Với trên 1,5 triệu 
người Mỹ gốc Việt tại Hoa Kỳ, vào thời điểm năm 2005 số người Việt ở Mỹ chiếm khoảng một nửa số Việt kiều trên toànthế giới. Họ thường tập trung ở miền Tây, chủ yếu là ở các khu vực đô thị. Riêng tiểu bang California chiếm phân nửa, tập trung đông đảo nhất tại Quận Cam, sau đó là San Jose, California  Houston, Texas.

Overseas Vietnamese
Người Việt Hải Ngoại
Total population
3,700,000 (estimates)
Regions with significant populations
 United States1,642,950(2007) [1]
 Cambodia600,000[2]
 France250,000[3]
 Australia159,848(2006) [4]
 Canada151,410(2001) [5]
 Taiwan120,000
–200,000
[6][7]
 Russiaup to 150,000[8]
 Germanyup to 125.000(2008)[9][10]
 South Korea116,219(2011)[11]
 United Kingdom55,000[12]
 Japan41,136(2008) [13]
 China20,000[8]
 Netherlands18,913[14]
 Norway18,333(2006) [15]
 Sweden11,771(2003) [16]
 Poland10,000[8]
 Denmark8,575(2002) [16]
 Switzerland8,173
 Qatar8,000(2008) [17]
 Belgium7,151(2001) [16]
 New Zealand4,875(2006) [18]
 Ukraine3,274(2001) [19]
 Hungary1,020(2001) [20]
 Finland4,000[21]
 Brazil1,000
 Thailand10,000[22]
 Laos150,000
 Italy3,000
Elsewhere400,000




























Song Meanings at Songfacts

http://www.songfacts.com/

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Vietnamese Boat People - Death Tolls and Casualty Statistics


According to the report of United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, 1/3 of Vietnamese boat people died at sea by killing, storms, illness,and food shortage. Out of a total  250,000 mixture ages of men, women, and children.

However, there were 160 people died on Kho Kra island, 1,250 rescued within a year. Currently, there are over 1.6 million boat people spread all across the world :  USA, Australia, Canada, France, England, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea,  Philippines...

Vietnamese Boat People - Death Tolls and Casualty Statistics

Vietnam, post-war Communist regime (1975 et seq.): 430 000

  • Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl Jackson ("Vietnam 1975-1982: The Cruel Peace", in The Washington Quarterly, Fall 1985) estimated that there had been around 65,000 executions. This number is repeated in the Sept. 1985 Dept. of State Bulletin article on Vietnam.
  • Orange County Register (29 April 2001): 1 million sent to camps and 165,000 died.
  • Northwest Asian Weekly (5 July 1996): 150,000-175,000 camp prisoners unaccounted for.
  • Estimates for the number of Boat People who died:
    • Elizabeth Becker (When the War Was Over, 1986) cites the UN High Commissioner on Refugees: 250,000 boat people died at sea; 929,600 reached asylum
    • The 20 July 1986 San Diego Union-Tribune cites the UN Refugee Commission: 200,000 to 250,000 boat people had died at sea since 1975.
    • The 3 Aug. 1979 Washington Post cites the Australian immigration minister's estimate that 200,000 refugees had died at sea since 1975.
      • Also: "Some estimates have said that around half of those who set out do not survive."
    • The 1991 Information Please Almanac cites unspecified "US Officials" that 100,000 boat people died fleeing Vietnam.
    • Encarta estimates that 0.5M fled, and 10-15% died, for a death toll of 50-75,000.
    • Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy (1986): ¼M Chinese refugees in two years, 30,000 to 40,000 of whom died at sea. (These numbers also repeated by Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945-1990 (1991))
  • Rummel
    • Vietnamese democide: 1,040,000 (1975-87)
      • Executions: 100,000
      • Camp Deaths: 95,000
      • Forced Labor: 48,000
      • Democides in Cambodia: 460,000
      • Democides in Laos: 87,000
      • Vietnamese Boat People: 500,000 deaths (50% not blamed on the Vietnamese goverment)
---------------------------------------------------

Thai Pirates vs Vietnamese Refugees

    As a girl in Vietnam, Hue was so cheerful that her mother would look at the smile and say, " Rain or shine, the flower blooms."

    Now she is 35 and finds it difficult to smile. She avoids human company, preferring to spend her time alone in the backyard of their small Sunnyvale house. The exotic birds, the goldfish ponds, the Asian statuary - all are shrines to sweet memories, handholds on the past that keep her from sinking into the sorrow of the present. But the garden is a refuge only during the day. At night, she has no place to hide from the dreams that invade her sleep and leave her screaming.

    The screams echo back to an evening in May eight years ago, when Thai pirates raped her with a savagery uncommon even on the Gulf of Thailand. That night turned Hue's life from a joy into a burden.

    "I get very depressed," she said. "It makes you feel so ashamed. You feel you want to disappear."

    Hue is not the only Vietnamese woman who feels that her life was irreparably damaged while crossing the gulf. There are an estimated 70,000 Vietnamese in Santa Clara County, and while no data exist on how many fled by boat or how many were attacked, all available statistics suggest that several thousands may fall into that category.

    What the children feel is often a mystery. Their solemn faces often are the only clue to thoughts and feelings sealed off inside and rarely, if ever, expressed. Many are like the two sons of a friend of Hue who - at ages 10 and 11 - watched their mother being gang raped seven years ago.

    "They never smile," she said.

    That Hue can smile, albeit with difficulty, is a tribute to the strength that made her one of the first women to captain a refugee boat. Her boat was 20 feet long and crowed with 33 refugees. The first two days of their voyage were uneventful, but at dusk on the third day, a large fishing boat appeared like a sinister shadow on the horizon and then bore down on them without a flag or lights. As they turned to avoid the boat, Hue ordered the women to smear their faces with engine oil and fish sauce to diminish their appeal. The ploy proved futile. The fishing boat easily caught up with them, and the first thing its crew did was demand that the women bathe. After bathing, the women were fed. After eating, they were searched. After being robbed, they were raped. Most of the crew members were dark skinned and curly haired. One who spoke English told Hue they were Cambodian, but she says that she did not believe him, that she thinks they were Thai. Their boat was distinctively Thai, and most of the pirates wore sarongs and headbands but no shirts, a common uniform for Thai fishermen.

    Hue shudders with disgust as she recalls the first man who raped her as 10 others clapped and cheered in a circle around them. His head was shaved, and the knife he held to her throat slashed her chin when she turned her head and clawed at his face. In retaliation, he and several other pirates clawed and bit her body with such force that she recently underwent surgery to reconstruct her mutilated breasts. The pirates then turned on a petite 16-year-old virgin and began to rape her as her father looked on. Unable to accommodate their brutality, the girl began to hemorrhage. As she slowly bled to death, they continued to rape her. After she died, they covered the upper half of their body with a sheet and raped her some more.

    By the time the pirates were finished with the girl, her father's eyes had seen more horror than his mind could handle. He had gone insane.

    Temporarily sated, the pirates decided to keep four women, including Hue, and let the other refugees continue their voyage. Only by leaping onto the refugee boat as a pirate cut the rope that bound it to the fishing boat did hue manage to save herself. But what she saved, she said was only part of what she had been.

    " I used to be such a happy person," she said. "I used to laugh and like to be with friends. Now I am quiet and prefer to be alone. Friends ask me to go out with them, but I don't feel like it. I go to weddings sometimes, but I only stay an hour or so and then leave. Some people say to forget about it, but you can't forget about it very easy."

    Added to the humiliation of her own abuse, Hue said, is guilt over the disappearances of the other three women, all of whom were her friends and all of whom she had coaxed into coming along.

    "I think about them all the time," she said. "I still don't know where they are. Sometimes their families write to me and ask where they are, and I say they are somewhere in America but I don't know where. I have to lie because I am afraid to tell them the truth."

    Hue married an older man five years ago, but says the marriage has never been consummated because the attack left her with an aversion to sex that she cannot overcome. She said she tried to commit suicide four years ago but was found before the overdose of sleeping pills took full effect. She no longer feels like killing herself, Hue said, but she feels she has little to live for except helping other women who suffered similar ordeals. "Some girls were much younger than me, and some had a harder time," she said. "One girl watched her two brothers get killed when they tried to stop the pirates from raping her. Later, she had a pirate's baby. She was 15.

    San Jose Mercury News, 1990.

Thousands of Vietnamese women refugees were raped and then murdered in front of their relatives in the sea. Many young girls were unable to accommodate their brutality and was slowly bled to death. In many cases, even after the victim died, the pirates covered the upper half of their body with a sheet and raped them some more. Among those who survived the rape, they were kidnapped to brothels to work as sex slaves, likely to earn tourists' dollars for Thailand. To this day, their fates still remain unknown, and the Thai government has made no effort to free them.

-----------------------------------------------------

Horrible Statistics of Thai Pirates vs Vietnamese Refugees

    In the 1980s, hundred of thousands of Vietnamese refugees, while escaping from Vietnam, were massacred in the sea by Thai fishermen turned pirates. The way they killed these refugees, which has been documented, was abnoxiously barbarous, and was certainly far more brutual than that of the Nazis or Pol Pot's clans. In many cases, Thai pirates used hammer, machete, gun to kill the entire boat, including children and women; some were simply dumped to the sea to die slowly. At the time, while Western governments sent navy ships to rescue refugees and combat these pirates, the Thai government took no action and was even obstructive to the rescue mission. None of these murderers were ever brought to face the weight of justice. The Thai government makes no attempt to even prosecute them.

    On April 27, 1983, a boatload of 31 men, women, and children fled Vietnam. Several days later, as they crossed the Gulf of Thailand, pirates robbed the vulnerable party and then attacked a second time with grievous consequences. Three women, aged 25, 26, and 30 were abducted. Twelve of the group were clubbed, knifed, and thrown into the sea. Another 12 drowned; their boat sank as the pirates attempted to tow it. This one boat, these 31 disfigured or lost lives, are but one episode in a continuing story.

    Since 1975, more than 575,000 Vietnamese have fled their homeland by sea. An unknown number have died or been kidnapped on the open water, never to be heard from again. Although today fewer people attempt to escape Vietnam by boat than in past years, an average of 2700 per month still land in asylum countries of Southeast Asia. These people are attacked by pirates with staggering vehemence and frequency; half of the refugee boats that arrived in Thailand in 1983, as well as a smaller but still significant number that landed in Malaysia, had been victimized.

    These pirates are not of the swashbuckling variety; rather they are common thugs and murderers on the high sea. They hurt people, almost casually, with women experiencing the worst of the violence. In recent months, some of the most heinous piracy attacks have occurred. In October 1983, pirates repeatedly raped 23 of 25 Vietnamese girls and women aboard a boat during a two-day attack. Some of the victims were hospitalized in critical condition.

    Piracy on the open sea is not a new problem; it is not unique to Southeast Asian waters. Nor it is exclusively or even primarily a "refugee problem." However, in the waters off of Thailand and Malaysia, pirate attacks against boat people have justifiably become an issue among those concerned about refugees. Though Thailand currently receives a relatively small percentage of total boat arrivals in Southeast Asia, the persons who flee to that country are most subject to attack. In this continuing tragedy, the factors causing people to flee their homeland, the reception they receive in nearby countries of first asylum, and the long-term prospects of resolving their political-legal status have merged with age-old questions of how to deal with opportunism and gangsterism.

    Among refugee protection issues worldwide, piracy is unique in one respect. Here, the danger to refugees is not posed by hostile or repressive government authorities or by ideological conflicts among nations. To the contrary -- those governments most in a position to eliminate the violence are allies in a Cold War context. The victims may ultimately become fellow citizens of the same Western democracies, which, with their Asian allies, can create a climate in which piracy can be controlled.

    Those charged with protecting and aiding refugees - national governments and international agencies alike -- have taken steps to combat piracy and to draw broader attention to the problem. These efforts -- from arranging the logistics of surveillance to urging governments to contribute needed funds and resources - are complex, and the complexities cannot be ignored.

    But neither can they be used to excuse the limited success anti-piracy efforts have had to date as evidenced by the continuing high level of violence. Some crimes are so heinous that failure of authorities to come to grips with them amounts to dereliction. Piracy against Vietnamese boat people is such a crime.

    This paper examines piracy in the Gulf of Thailand and measures that have been taken to stem it, focusing largely on Thailand. It concludes with recommendations for improving those measures. The paper incorporates information for improving those measures. The paper incorporates information from interviews carried out by staff of the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) on a recent fact-finding trip to Thailand and Malaysia and reflects investigations by other private as well as government parties since that trip. Statistics are based on reports of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

    INTRODUCTION Piracy has been a part of life throughout the waters of Southeast Asia for hundreds of years, despite nations� historical resolve to combat it. "It was an evil so old, so widespread, and with so many facets,"writes D.G.E. Hall in his History of South-East Asia, "that it baffled efforts (to suppress it) for many years, for it was an honorable profession which was connived at, promoted, or even directly engaged in the highest potentates And nowhere else in the world is geography so favorable to piracy."

    In the early 1980�s, the Dutch and the English, prominent powers in the region formally resolved to protect their shipping from attacks, off the coast of Malaysia. The U.S. shared the concern over pirate attacks, and its first commercial treaty with the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), signed in 1833, contains provisions relating to piracy. Since the 1800s, the international community has recognized piracy as a crime. In recent years, it has been formally outlawed under various conventions; the most recent one, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, states in Article 100 that "all nations shall cooperate to the fullest extent possible in the repression of piracy on the high seas

    In modern times as in the past, nations have concerned themselves primarily with piracy against commerce - the robbing and scuttling of oil tankers, for example. Such attacks persist in Southeast Asia at a June 1983 convention of the International Maritime organization, the waters off of Singapore were cited as one of two areas in the world most significantly affected by piracy against commercial shipping. But another form of piracy is also characteristic of the waters of the region - small-scale poaching wars among and between Thai and other nationals. It is into this context of personalized piracy that Vietnamese boat people have entered.

    In the environs of Songkhla city in Southeast Thailand, the present-day pirates are generally fishermen or immigrant farmers from northern Thailand who fish part-time. The massive Thai fishing feet - 40,000 to 50,000 small boats - allows anonymity to the pirates, and the hundreds of islands in the area provide hiding places.

    Thailand has not been able to regulate its fishermen effectively, unlike Malaysia jut to the south. There, authorities� longstanding fear of communist infiltrators and resultant commitment of money and resources have brought fishermen under a well-run registration program, and they have been banned from carrying weapons. In contrast, some Thai fishing vessels are better armed equipped than the small patrol craft used by the Royal Thai Navy or marine police in their anti-piracy efforts.

    Perhaps the most important factor that permits piracy to flourish is the social fabric of southern Thailand. The area is semi-independent of control from Bangkok, and uneasy relations between its large ethnic-Malay and Muslim minority population and the ethnic-Thai Buddhist majority, as well as other political, ethnic, and religious factors, make event the administration of usual government programs difficult. Lawlessness is chronic - stores are stocked with contraband, smuggling is commonplace, and country roads are the sites of nighttime hold-ups by roaming gangs or dissident groups.

    In the setting, piracy has a firm niche, and international laws against such activity seem almost irrelevant.

    Boat People As Victims

    Attacks on boat people occurred as early as the first boat escapes in 1975. Their frequency increased as the number of boats multiplied and word spread along the southern Thai coast of boat people coming, often with their remaining resources converted into gold or hard currency. In 1981, 77 percent of the boats, which left Vietnam and eventually landed in Thailand were attacked. In 1982 and 1983, the percentages were 65 and 56, respectively. Though the trend is downward, the viciousness of attacks has not abated, and any level of such violence is unacceptable.

    Motivated by the promise of booty or centuries-old racial antagonism between the Thai and the Vietnamese, the pirate attacks take a variety of savage forms. Hundreds of victims have died, having been shot, knifed, beaten, or rammed; some have committed suicide under duress. If victims survive the first attack, a second is virtually certain: the average number of attacks per boat has almost consistently exceeded two since 1981 and has reached over three in some times periods. Children have told of being beaten or terrorized by pirates wielding hammers and knives. They have watched as their mothers were raped or abducted. Girls as young as six years of age have been sexually assaulted.

    Clearly, young girls and women are victimized in disproportionate measure. Over a period of almost three years ending in November 1983, most of the nearly 500 persons reported as kidnapped were female. Of that number, fewer than half have been found; abductees are often simply thrown overboard. Some women are sold prostitution by their captors.

      Pirate Attacks on Boat People Arriving in Thailand 1981-1983

    No. of Persons Arrived

      15095

      5913

      3171

    No. of Deaths from Attack **

      571

      155

      43

    No. of Abductees ***

      243

      157

      89

    (No. Traced)

      78

      92

      35

    No. of Rape Victims ***

      599

      179

      85

    No. of Persons Missing

      n.a

      443

      153

    No. of Boats Arrived

      455

      218

      138

    No. of Boats Attacked (%)

      352 (77%)

      141 (65%)

      77 (56%)

    No. of Attacks

      1149

      381

      173

    Average No. of Attacks Per Attacked Boat

      3.2

      2.7

      2.3

    Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Note: These statistics are based solely upon reports by boat people. * Through November 1983. ** Includes only piracy-related deaths, eg. Shooting, knifing, beating, ramming and suicide under duress. Accidental deaths or deaths due to sickness or starvation are not included. *** Abductees are generally, but not always, also rape victims. Abduction and rape figures here are mutually exclusive. A person who is both an abductee and a rape victim is counted only as an abductee.

    In 1982, almost 53 percent of the boats were subject to rape/abduction attacks. Between January and November 1983, abductions and rapes were occurring at almost the same rate as in the preceding year. The figures are thought to understate the extent of the crimes, as they are based solely on accounts of boat people known to UNHCR, and many are reluctant to report rapes to outsiders. The statistics also do not reflect usually also rape victims.

    Aside from the physiological problems caused by rape, the women experience long- lasting psychological and emotional problems. These include depression and anxiety over possible pregnancy, loss of esteem by family and friends, and what their experiences will mean for their chances of a happy marriage.

    Few services are available to the women at Songkhla camp, the main camp for boat arrivals in southern Thailand. There is no counseling for rape victims, and abortions are not available. Even in the camp, women remain vulnerable; security is weak and allegedly has been violated.

    The boat people put up little resistance to the attacks, although some survivors have said they tried to defend themselves. Nearly all travel unarmed, as it has been difficult to obtain unauthorized weapons in Vietnam since 1975, especially for those considered suspect by the government.

    In any event, the boat people believe that weapons would probably be useless as a defense against pirates. Often, violent attacks occur after the voyagers have been at sea for many days and are exhausted from their widely held belief that resistance will mean death for children or for everyone aboard in retribution. Also, boat people know that pirates can communicate by radio with confederates and bring reinforcements.

    Piracy One of Several Dangers Piracy is but one of the dangers the boat people must consider as they plan their escapes. Typically unskilled at piloting, they must depart in secrecy, often poorly provisioned and lacking navigational aids. Boats fit for travel are harder than ever to come by in Vietnam, as the supply has been depleted by illicit escapes since the 1970s. Serious overcrowding of the small craft is common; boats seldom exceed 30 feet in length and were designed primarily for river travel, not for crossing the high seas.

    Further, concerned over the loss of boats from their fishing fleets and of manpower for their army, Vietnamese officials are trying to discourage escapes by imposing jail terms or sentences to a re-education camp on those who try to exit surreptitiously. Boat people landing Thailand estimate as many as 80 percent of those attempting escape are caught.

    It may be that the hazards of the journey have affected recent levels of boat flows. The number of boat people arriving in asylum countries has declined over the last years; 33,000 landed between October 1982 and September 1983, compared to 49,000 for the same period a year earlier. But the decline may also be attributable to slightly improved conditions for some in Vietnam, harsher policies of Thailand and other nations toward asylum seekers, and the introduction of a program of legal emigration from Vietnam. There is no certainty that another mass exodus of boat people is expanded, illegal departures will decline still further.

    It is certain that the threat of piracy alone is not enough to deter escape attempts. While word of the attacks consistently has reached Vietnam, either through Voice of America and Radio Australia broadcasts or letters from relatives, some victims simply do not believe what they hear or read. One young girl dismissed as "just talk" a report from a friend that she had been raped 70 times. She, herself was subsequently abducted and held for 12 days, raped repeatedly, and dumped into the sea. Some victims thought they could avoid pirates: some who landed in Thailand told USCR that they had set their sights for Malaysia, currently the preferred landing point of boat people, in part because the waters are safer. However, their poor navigational abilities; the weather; or theft of their boat motors, leaving them adrift, kept them from succeeding.

    Programs to Combat Piracy Two formal programs have been undertaken to combat piracy against Vietnamese boat people. A bilateral American/Thai effort, backed by $2 million in U.S. funds, was in effect from February through September 1981. It equipped the Royal Thai Navy with two spotter aircraft, money for the construction of a patrol boat, and operating resources. As a new initiative, it led to some convictions of pirates, but attacks continued.

    When the bilateral program expired, the U.S. and Thailand could not agree on a continuation of their initial effort. The major obstacle apparently was Thai insistence that $30 million in resources was needed in order to curb attacks.

    Largely on the ground that the piracy was occurring on the high seas and thus cause for world concern, UNHCR subsequently negotiated the start of an international funded anti-piracy program to be administered by the Thai government.

    Begun in July 1982, this broadened effort drew donations for one year�s operation from 12 countries. $2 million from the U.S.; and a total of $1.7 million from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Holland, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

    Along with the new money, the Thai received more hardware. Three patrol craft, three support trawlers, and three decoy boats were made available to the Royal Thai Navy, which again undertook responsibilities for surveillance. Funds were also set aside for the Harbor Department and marine police.

    The navy�s assignment was a difficult one: it had 18,000 square miles of water to patrol - as far west as the continental shelf of Thailand, south to the Malaysian border, and north to a point midway between Thailand and Vietnam. With aircraft of limited capabilities, its efforts were constrained. Rarely would actual attacks be seen from the air, as only about one-third of the patrol area would be covered in a day�s surveillance was not conducted. Even if an attack was sighted, there was little that could be done immediately, as the navel planes were not equipped to land on the water. Positive identification of suspects - a key element in bringing piracy suspects to trial - was also elusive, as pilots flew equipped only with a simple hand-held 35mm camera to photograph events.

    The aircraft was intended to work in tandem with surveillance teams on the water. Three such teams consisted of a decoy boat, a fishing trawler, and a patrol craft. Normally one unit was placed in the general area of the air patrols, which the other two were left in port for overhaul or use in training exercises.

    Like their counterparts in the air, the boats were of limited effectiveness. The patrols did not operate at night, and the craft were not capable of venturing out in rough weather. If notified of an attack by a spotter plane, a patrol boat might need several hours to reach the site of an attack, enough time for pirates to have their way and to escape.

    Other problems hobbled legal aspects of anti-piracy efforts. For example, in August 1982, a group of fishermen boarded a decoy boat and were arrested. Though Thai officials suspected them of intending to rob the boat, the intruders could not be punished for that intention because Thailand does not have a conspiracy law. Ultimately, the men were released because they had not been observed to commit any act of piracy and officials did not consider it a sufficient deterrent to prosecute them for a lesser crime, such as trespassing. Further, few boat people themselves are inclined to press charges or provide crucial identification of suspects. Their reluctance derives from several factors: distrust of Thai authorities, fear of reprisal from pirates, UNHCR�s limited ability to ensure physical protection, and worry that involvement might interfere with their hopes of resettlement. Too, women victims and their families often tend to want to forget their trauma and fear being stigmatized by court proceedings.

    Thai Administration Criticized

    In the spring of 1983 as Thailand braced for a seasonal upsurge in boat arrivals, the internationally supported program was producing meager results. No suspected pirates had been arrested, let alone convicted, while two-thirds of the Vietnamese boats landing in Thailand were still being attacked.

    The navy�s effort were flawed. The decoy boats, for example, were docked in plain view at the harbor in Songkhla and, when on patrol, were manned by young naval personnel who could hardly be mistaken for boat people. But critics conceded that patrolling the Gulf was not easy, and they largely wrote off obvious errors to inexperience. Instead, most of the criticism was directed toward the Thai�s administration of the program.

    The government had formed a high-level group, the Royal Thai Government Committee on the Suppression of Piracy, to coordinate Thai involvement. But it met only once during the first ten months of the internationally funded program. Meanwhile, Thailand�s National Security council (NSC) became the de facto coordinator and administrator. To the NSC fell such essential tasks as distributing program funds to various Thai agencies, monitoring their needs and progress, and providing UNHCR with reports about how the effort was proceeding.

    No full-time personnel were assigned to deal with piracy issues for the NSC, and the group was ineffective in implementing initiatives. It failed, for example, to push the Harbor Department to set up a computerized registration of Thai fishing boats, for which it had been given $160,000 and technical assistance; in ten months, the department managed only to draw up a contract to design the project. NSC reports to UNHCR in Bangkok on anti-piracy efforts were late and superficial: in March 1983, UNHCR received a report that covered the period from October through December 1982; surveillance activities were described in four lines.

    The poor administration of anti-piracy activities may simply have reflected bureaucratic problems endemic to the Thai government. Interagency efforts at national and local levels are difficult in most developing countries, and Thailands NSC, in particular, lacked the wherewithal to coordinate the complex of tasks.

    The Thai may also have been acting out their consistently held belief that the international community must take responsibility for fighting piracy. Thailand alone could not do so, some have suggested, especially when faced with such other pressing concerns as controlling drug smuggling, dealing with military insecurity on its eastern border, and fighting bandits and local insurgents in south Thailand.

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The suffering of the Vietnamese Boat people

When the Americans lost the Vietnam War there were many 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. In doing so they unwittingly wrote themselves into modern pirate history.

Conditions were perfect for piracy. The local fishermen were poor and were looking for an easy means to supplement their income. The Vietnamese government did not care about them and the Thai government was not anxious to receive large boatloads of refugees. No one cared about the fate of the boat people so allegations of piracy were often ignored. It was only when the incidents became more shocking that pressure was brought to bear on the Thai government by maritime interests led by the Americans. By then thousands had been robbed, raped and murdered. What follows are some examples:

  • In the early eighties an American, Ted Schweitzer, landed on a pirate island and heard how 238 refugees had been shipwrecked there. Eighty had been killed and the women were raped and forced to dance naked. Schweitzer tried to stop this but was knocked unconscious. He was lucky to live. When he awoke he found dismembered limbs and evidence of cannibalism.
  • Nguyen Phan Thuy booked a passage out of Vietnam with her mother, aunt and younger sister. After ten days at sea the boat was stranded and without food or water. They were attacked by pirates, who shot her aunt. An old man's gold teeth were ripped out of his mouth with pliers and a woman's baby was thrown into the sea. The survivors were made to strip and then landed on the beach and their boat was sunk. The women were lined up and Phan and a girl called Lien were selected and taken on board a fishing boat. Over the next three weeks both girls were repeatedly raped. Lien could not stand it and in the end the pirates could not stand her. She was thrown overboard. Phan was sold to a village brothel - "The Paradise Massage Parlour". She became pregnant but the baby was aborted with a bamboo stick. Eventually she escaped and was handed over to the UN.
  • In 1989 a boatload of 84 refugees were attacked by pirates. The women and children were transferred to the boats and never heard of again. The men were kept in the hold and brought up one by one to be clubbed to death. Eventually they panicked and tried to rush the pirates. The pirates rammed the boat to sink it. Some managed to escape but were pushed under water by poles. Thirteen survivors managed to escape by swimming away under cover of darkness.
  • In April 1989 seven pirates armed with a gun knives and hammers attacked 129 Vietnamese. The women were raped and all of them were slaughtered save one, Pham Ngoc Man Hung (seen pictured identifying the pirates), who survived by clinging onto a raft made out of three bloated corpses.

Eventually the Thai government was forced to take measures. Fishing boats had to be registered with a prominent number displayed on its prow. Boats were also photographed going in and out of port. This deterred many but those pirates who remained became more brutal and ruthless, ensuring there were no witnesses to identify them.

Pirate incidents petered out at the end of the eighties as the number of refugees decreased. It is fashionable nowadays for historians to assume that the barbarity of pirates was overrated and that pirates were basically career criminals. These more recent accounts are almost certainly not exaggerated and so it seems likely that many of those stories in the past were equally true.

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The Trauma Caused by the Vietnam War

Imagine yourself on a small boat travelling across the Pacific Ocean. Not knowing where you’re going. Not knowing whether or not your family, the family you just left behind in your home country still lives. Not knowing whether or not tomorrow you will be alive or dead. Your stomach is growling, you haven’t eaten anything for three days, the boat has run out of supplies and the only water left is the seawater that surrounds the boat. You lie at the bottom of the boat, unable to move. You’re helpless! Questions wander through your mind. Will you be saved? Will you reach a refugee camp? Will a storm erupt or will pirates invade the boat? This is the suffering that many of the Vietnam War refugees had to go through.

Today I want to take you all on a journey through the Vietnam War. Not as an Australian or American veteran recalling memories, or as some bystander that watched it on TV telling you facts. I will tell you facts, but some of these aren’t the facts that you would normally read in books. I want to take you as the refugees and the people of South Vietnam. These are the people whom I believe have been forgotten about, yet they are probably the ones most effected by this conflict!

The Vietnam War - a conflict that lasted from the mid 1950’s - 1975. A conflict that went on for 20 years. 20 years of fighting! The Communists against the anti-Communists. Russia, China and the Viet Cong - the Vietnamese communists against the South Vietnamese, America, Australia etc. And the battle ground for this conflict? South Vietnam. It was because of this conflict that there are Vietnam refugees today. But why all the refugees?

The year’s 1975 on the 30th of April, the Communists have won the war. Over 2 million South Vietnamese, dead! 58 thousand Americans, dead! 504 Australians, dead! Three times the amount of bombs dropped in WW2 have been dropped in this one conflict. This is when the refugees start to run! Why? They’re scared. The Communists are capturing all those who were involved with the South Vietnamese Government, the army, the navy and the air force. If you were captured then you left your family to go to prison. The South Vietnamese believed that they had to escape in order to give their families a future. How did they escape? By boat of course. Boat People was a term used to describe all the refugees who fled after the Vietnam War.

The process of this escape however was very time consuming and could take 2 years. The refugees had to sell all their valuables in order to obtain money to buy equipment. The boats would normally be only 3 by 10 metres and of wood and yet they had to fit up to 100 people. The escaping night was very frightening. The refugees had to move to the boat in small groups of 3-5, so that they wouldn’t look conspicuous for if the Viet Cong did spot them they were either imprisoned or shot. Once the refugees had all met up they boarded the boat. Now, don’t think it was relaxing in that boat like it is on a Caribbean Cruise. It was probably one of the worst experiences these refugees ever had. They were packed in like sardines. This means that when they got sea sick, where do you think they vomited? Right where they were of course. They needed to go the toilet, where did they go? Right where they were. If that wasn’t enough, there was the fear of Thai pirates. They would invade the boat, steal all the supplies and kidnap the young women to be either raped or sold! The others would be left on a deserted island to die. Other fears was that a huge thunderstorm would erupt or the boat would run out of supplies and everyone starved to death. If the boat was lucky then it might be saved by the French and German ship called ‘Cape D’amour’ or reach one of the refugee camps.

So now it’s the present one again, one million of these boat people are dead and the others live in countries like Australia leading basically normal lives. But what about all the soldiers and people of South Vietnam that were unable to escape? What happened to them? Well, the soldiers were kicked out of the hospitals they were in and sent to prison. All these soldiers still wounded from the war. Their families left to support themselves. When they were released, if they were released they were sent to the jungle to live. Forbidden to enter the city. They couldn’t get jobs, couldn’t support their families and couldn’t give their children an education, the education that we all take for granted. This is the suffering that the South Vietnamese veterans still in Vietnam went through and are still going through today. The Australian veterans were supported and are now national heroes, the Americans are heroes, and even the Communists are heroes to their people. But what about the soldiers of South Vietnam living in Vietnam today? They have practically been forgotten and yet they are the biggest heroes of them all! Not only for defending their country in this devastating war but also for putting up with everything that the Viet Cong put them through.

So now your journey ends, you have seen the traumatic journey the Vietnam refugees had to go through. You have heard about the devastating lives the South Vietnamese veterans in Vietanam are leading. I ask you not to forget these forgotten soldiers. And the conflict between the North and South that caused millions of people to die, thousands of bombs to be dropped and what did it accomplish? A country that used to be filled with smiling people in cultural dress everywhere you went now replaced by Viet Cong policemen.

Vietnam will never be the same again....

By: Nguyen Viet Huong - Public Speaking Arwards - April 30, 2000

Free Vietnamese Community in Queensland Australia

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Fate of the “Boat People”

by Don Hardy

Galang Island rests quietly in the calm sea, indistinguishable from thousands of other green Indonesian islands near the Equator south of Singapore. But for tens of thousands of Vietnamese "boat people," the United Nations refugee camp on this island represented a single, thin ray of hope. For most of those who boarded small, rickety boats to escape Vietnam after the war in search of new and happier lives, Galang will not be what they hoped to find.

Laying a thick trail of oily diesel smoke low across the glassy sea, our noisy boat violates nature's tranquility as it slices toward the wooden dock on this tiny, emerald isle. One would never suspect this forested point of land protruding unassumingly from the warm ocean was be home, at any one time, to nearly 20,000 desperate people who had no idea what their futures would hold. They risked everything in the belief that their new lives, or the lives they hoped to live someday in another country, would prove better than those they left behind.

The people who arrived on Galang already passed a difficult test. They rolled the dice on a dangerous ocean voyage and won. Many others lost that gamble. Pirates troll the seas in search of easy prey, and often find it. Many Vietnamese were robbed, killed or raped shortly after they gathered their meager possessions and set off in the cloak of darkness in search of freedom and opportunity. A small shrine on the island pays tribute to three women who, after suffering the humiliation of rape during their journey, took their own lives.

My seven Congressional staff colleagues and I were greeted warmly by camp staff and U.N. workers whose difficult job, beyond providing meager shelter, rations and minimal health care, was to determine which of those people arriving would qualify for refugee status and possible resettlement in other countries.

Those unable to prove themselves political refugees under United Nations definition -- or with no close relatives in other countries to sponsor them -- faced a bleak future. Some eventually returned to Vietnam, some remained for years in the camp, hoping against hope to someday be "saved." During my visit, most did not qualify for resettlement. Still, few of those rejected voluntarily returned to the conditions that forced their exile.

At a briefing, the camp commander revealed that Galang was established at the end of the Vietnam war and built to house only a quarter of the population living there. At that point, the United States had accepted 82,060 of those who survived their ordeal and qualified for resettlement.

As of my visit in 1991, Canada became home to 13,516 people, followed by Australia's acceptance of 6,470. Other countries had not stretched their arms as widely. Japan accepted only 113 people. Spain, Italy, Argentina and Ireland took fewer than 20 each. Meanwhile, scores of people continued to arrive from the open sea on overloaded vessels. An additional 50 were being born in the camp each month.

The difficulties for Galang refugees intensified as many nations strengthened their resolve not to accept any more "boat people." Often, the overloaded boats arriving in countries throughout southeast Asia were simply pushed back out to sea.

After our briefing, a security truck, red light flashing, led our caravan of four jeeps on a tour of the camp -- two camps, actually. Two camps, and a cemetery on the side of a hill known as Camp Three.

Light rain fell as we stopped to talk with people and take pictures of small roadside shops. Other than money brought with them, or funds sent by relatives, the refugees were without financial resources and very limited opportunity to earn money. But the prospect of minimal sales to each other and to island visitors maintained a few tiny food stands and small, wooden stores carrying basic supplies.

There was the hollow expression of resignation and sadness on some of the older faces, but not the children's. Excited by the parade of visitors, they eagerly posed for pictures and hesitatingly tried out English phrases they learned in school. Giggled calls of, "Good morning, sir," or "Nice afternoon, sir," rang out recognizably from the noisy chatter as we shuffled conspicuously and self-consciously along the small road. Returned greetings met a reaction of giggles and laughter.

Nearby, under a small open-air shelter, the serious business of casting fates was being conducted. A United Nations' employee, in this case a pleasant and caring attorney from Washington, interviewed each person who arrived, soon determining whether an applicant's qualifications for resettlement could be met -- whether the individual was to be "screened in" or "screened out."

That crucial decision made all the difference for tens of thousands of people. With the passage of time since the war, increasing numbers of applicants were found to be economic migrants, technically not refugees, and therefore they did not qualify for resettlement in the United States. The interview sometimes lasted more than an hour. Eighty percent of the time, in 1991, the decision rendered was unfavorable.

As we milled about and through interpreters spoke with people whose fates would soon be known, I spotted a pretty young girl in a clean white dress standing quietly by herself. She backed away as I approached, but before long agreed to a photo with me. Her voice was soft and quiet. She didn't smile.

She was a small seven years old. I asked if her parents were also in the camp. She didn't answer immediately, finally speaking quietly and unemotionally. The interpreter hesitated, then said, "This little girl doesn't know where her parents are." My throat tying in a knot, I tried not to speculate on their fate. When I looked down at the innocent little face and started to ask another question, my words won't come out.

Walking slowly down the dirt road, I pondered and cursed the distant political forces that brought the little girl, and the thousands of other people, to this place. I recalled a note pinned to flowers at the funeral for victims of the air disaster in Scotland several years earlier. Before that flight departed, a man waiting to board a different plane had met some of the passengers. After the crash he sent the note to an impromptu memorial. It said, "To the little girl in the red dress....you didn't deserve this." The little girl in the white dress that I had just met didn't deserve her fate either, but nobody even knew about her.

Our little caravan wound its way through the rest of the camp and past the place where a fifteen foot boa constrictor had been dragged from a small river by excited young men. A few minutes later we arrived back at the small pier. In a place where every person's prayer is to someday leave, I feel guilty that we, people who already had so much freedom and opportunity, would be the only passengers on the only boat departing that day.

After formalities and handshakes with camp official, the boat's motor belched to life and we slowly pulled away. Standing on the deck, I strained to see the main camp. But it was behind the hills and hidden from view, just as the pain of the people who lived there was hidden from world view.

As the island disappeared into the horizon, my long wave went unseen. Finally, as it slipped from view, I pondered the lives of the thousands of people who felt driven to literally cast their fates to the wind, not knowing whether Galang Island will be their first stop on the road to freedom, or their last.

I often think about and am haunted by Galang and the camp that is now closed. Eventually, some people's dream of resettlement on other countries came true. Others were repatriated back to Vietnam and the lives they tried to escape.

Most haunting is my memory of the quiet little dark-haired girl in the white dress. Just before our group left the processing center that day I spotted her again, walking down a dirt path. She stopped and we looked at each other without expression for a long moment. Just as she turned to walk away, a hesitant smile crossed her face as she raised her right hand in hesitant wave.

I could never forget that wet, hilly place at the opposite point on planet earth from where I sometimes fail to appreciate all my freedoms. I think often of that quiet little girl and try to imagine what became of her. It pains my mind and heart that I can never learn her fate, because I never even knew her name.

There are events in life that must be seen and felt by the heart to be truly absorbed -- and once fully understood have the power to fundamentally and forever change us. For me it is Galang, a distant island of burning hope -- and bitter despair.

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Source: http://www.vietka.com/