An Examination of Major Human Displacements in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia

The plight of the refugee is tragically more common than the average Westerner would dare to imagine. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people are uprooted from their homes and are forced to abandon property, jobs, friends, and family. In the twentieth century few regions have been so plagued with refugee movements as Asia, and in particular Southeast Asia. The great movement of the "Boat People" during and following the Indochinese Wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos was perhaps the most obvious of these, yet it certainly was not alone. In the period stretching between 1987 and 1997 seven separate Southeast Asian countries have played host to massive human displacement. Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia are among these states.

In order understand the nature and underlying causes of the forced human migratory movements in Southeast Asia, one must first begin by carefully examining particular movements and determining, if possible their underlying causes. Therefore this work will seek to analyze four particular movements in Southeast Asia which occurred in the period between 1987 and 1997, a period which entails the fall of the balancing bilateralism of the Cold War, the expansion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the rise of the Asian economic "tigers" and "dragon" which was ended (or at least briefly curtailed) by the dawn of the Asian Financial Crisis. These movements are the 1993-1995 flight of ethnic Vietnamese from Cambodia, the 1997 Cambodian coup and its resultant displacements, the massive displacement in Myanmar which originated in the 1988 crackdown, and the ongoing flight to Papua New Guinea from the rebellious Indonesian province of Irian Jaya.

I. Working Definitions

Before any examination of refugee movements can be undertaken, one must first clarify what is meant by the term refugee. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) states:

the refugee concept has a. . . specific meaning. As established in the
1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the word
refugee refers to a person who, "owing to a well-founded fear of
being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or
membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is
outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to
such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
country."⁽¹⁾

This is as opposed to another definition, first presented at the Organization of African Unity's (OAU) 1969 Refugee Convention. This definition places, "less emphasis on a fear of persecution and more on objective conditions of violence and disorder in the country of origin."⁽²⁾ It states:

The term refugee . . . shall apply to every person who, owing
to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events
seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his
country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of
habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside
his country of origin or nationality.⁽³⁾

This term quickly came to be favored by numerous other pan-regional entities, as well as by the UNHCR.⁽⁴⁾ Therefore, in the strictest terms, following both of these definitions, a refugee is an individual who not only seeks refuge, but seeks refuge outside of the borders of their state of residence (though that individual does not necessarily hold citizenship in that or any other state).

This definition of the refugee may be contrasted with that of the internally displaced person (IDP). These are individuals who have been forced to leave their particular home but remain inside of the sovereign boundaries of their state of origin. The processes which result in the creation of IDP movements are similar, if not parallel, to those which result in refugee movements.

Southeast Asia will, in this work, refer to the region encompassing Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalem, Cambodia (or Kampuchea), Indonesia, the Laotian People's Democratic Republic (or Laos), Malaysia, Myanmar (or Burma), Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. This definition includes two states which are generally not considered to be Southeast Asian, namely Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea, the former generally considered to be a South Asian state, the latter an Oceania or Pacific entity. Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea are included in this discussion because both are geographically connected to Southeast Asia in such a way as to make them readily available to refugee migration from states which are more traditionally considered to be Southeast Asian. In the context of this discussion it would therefore seem acceptable to expand the traditional (and subjective) boundaries in favor of a more pragmatic definition.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is included in this discussion not only due to its geographic proximity to the states of Southeast Asia but its high level of interaction, economic and otherwise, with the states of this region during this period. Any reference to China, unless otherwise stated, is a reference to the PRC.

II. Case One: Cambodia

Cambodia, like Laos and Vietnam, is well known for spending decades entrenched in seemingly unending warfare. As the home of one of the "Killing Fields," one of the greatest human atrocities in the whole of human history, the people of Cambodia witnessed war and displacement on a scale rarely paralleled. However, with the onset of the 1990s and the stabilization of the Indochinese governments, it appeared that Cambodia might soon be able to enter a more peaceful phase in its history, a point confirmed by the return of more than 360,000 Cambodians from Thailand in 1993 and 1994.⁽⁵⁾ As the United States Committee on Refugees (USCR) points out, "They returned in large part because they [the Cambodian refugees] believed that the international community's massive investment in Cambodia would make it a safe, stable place to live following two decades of war and genocide."⁽⁶⁾ This was not, however, to be the case.

Two spasmodic bursts of violence were to result in massive human displacement in Cambodia between 1987 and 1997. The first of these movements was between 1993 and 1995. Even as refugees continued to repatriate, the Khmer Rouge began military campaigns directed primarily against ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. Despite the limited numbers and strength of the Khmer Rouge, their tactics were extremely effective at forcing the Vietnamese to flee, in the end pushing an estimated 30,000 individuals into Vietnam. By 1995 the Khmer Rouge push had largely come to a close and by 1997 only about half of the refugees, 13,000 individuals, remained in the area of original asylum.⁽⁷⁾ The UNHCR speculates that those individuals unaccounted for "either spontaneously repatriated or moved to other provinces in Vietnam where they have been locally integrated."⁽⁸⁾

The cause of this particular displacement may be seen as ultimately the result of two primary motivations. First, the Khmer Rouge were actively attempting to regain a foothold on power. They recognized that a democratic, multiparty political system held little long-term benefit to an organization that lacked popular support. To acquiesce to the system would be to freely give up all claims to power. This pitted the Khmer Rouge directly counter to the coalition government, including Hun Sen and his supporters. Since Hun Sen was himself installed into power through the backing of the Vietnamese government, the Khmer Rouge may have logically assumed that were the ethnic Vietnamese driven out of the country, Hun Sen, and therefore the coalition government, would lose considerable popular support. In this sense the Khmer Rouge may be seen as pursuing political ends.

However a further motivation also remains, a nationalistic one. Considerable animosities continued to exist between ethnic Cambodians and Vietnamese in Cambodia, largely as a result of the Vietnamese invasion several years before. The Vietnamese easily swept into Cambodia and pushed the Khmer Rouge into the jungles of the border country, occupied the country, then set up a Vietnamese puppet government. Therefore the Khmer Rouge likely saw this as a chance for vengeance, vengeance against an enemy of their movement and their people. Indeed, this desire for vengeance may have been magnified if the Khmer Rouge perceived the Vietnamese as traitors, fellow Indochinese who had called themselves allies in the early years of the revolution, but soon enough let their true colors, and intentions, show.

The second major Cambodian displacement had its roots in power politics as well. "In 1997," states the USCR, Cambodia, "again plunged into violence, suffering new refugee flight and internal displacement. In July, troops loyal to Hun Sen, Cambodia's second prime minister, ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, first prime minister.⁽⁹⁾ This coup would lead to the largest outbreak of violence since the formation of the coalition government. The USCR notes:

FUNCINPEC and KNP leaders and supporters fled overland to
Thailand to escape Hun Sen's forces. Many entered without difficulty
in the days immediately following the coup. The UN Center for Human
Rights in Phnom Penh assisted more than 100 opposition figures and
other Cambodians to leave the country. Most went to Thailand, whose
embassy in Phnom Penh issued them visas quickly.⁽¹⁰⁾

The Thai government's early response was crucial in insuring that the majority of opposition leaders in Cambodia survived Hun Sen's coup. However soon the Thai government began to restrict entry, beginning in July of 1997, when 2,000 displaced persons were stopped at the Thai border near the Cambodian town of Poipet. This action was immediately succeeded in Phnom Penh when the Thai "embassy. . . stopped issuing visas to Cambodians."⁽¹¹⁾ Meanwhile, combat in northwestern Cambodia displaced several thousand more Cambodians, forcing them to flee to the Thai border.

>Within weeks some 15,000 individuals had assembled in and around the border town of O'Smach (opposite the Thai province of Surin), while north of Poipet approximately 3,000 individuals gathered in O'Bei Choan. By the first of August forces clashing outside of O'Bei Choan severely threatened the displaced persons gathered there, and the Thai government allowed their entry into Thailand. Immediately after the bloodshed in the immediate area around O'Bei Choan ceased, however, the Thai government returned the refugees to Cambodia, though it did assist them and provide transport for any individuals (about 400 in all) who preferred to take up residence in O'Smach instead.⁽¹²⁾ "By the second week of August," notes the USCR:

By the second week of August, up to 30,000 displaced
Cambodians were at O'Smach. It was unclear whether
any sought to enter Thailand. Thailand, however, was clear
that it would permit only those Cambodians whose lives
were at immediate risk to enter. Thailand allowed an
international NGO to cross into O'Smach to provide medical
care and UNHCR to transport food to O'Smach from Thailand.
When fighting neared O'Smach in mid-August, Thailand did
permit the Cambodians to enter, setting up facilities in Surin Province
and permitting UNHCR and NGOs to assist the refugees.⁽¹³⁾

Near the end of August, combat in western Cambodia compelled the migration of approximately 3,500 Cambodians into the Trat province of Thailand. Similar circumstances forced the movement of 6,000 more individuals in September (again to Trat province). While "fighting and new refugee flows continued the rest of the year," the next major movement into Thailand was of some 2,000 refugees in late December (near Poipet and O'Bei Choan).⁽¹⁴⁾ As fighting began to cease in the western provinces of Cambodia, some refugees felt adequately confident repatriating, with about 9,000 Cambodians returning to their country of origin in late 1997 (though some 62,000 refugees remained in Thailand and another 28,000 people remained internally displaced within Cambodia).⁽¹⁵⁾

Of further note, in regards to the 1997 Cambodian displacements, is the question as to whether or not there was any connection in the timing of the trigger event (being the outbreak of full-scale conflict on July 5^th, 1997)⁽¹⁶⁾ and simultaneously developing economic events (namely the onset of the Asian Financial crisis in June of the same year).⁽¹⁷⁾ The question is an intriguing one, and deserves some attention. While there had, at least since spring of 1997, visible tensions between the coalition government's leaders (Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh), and, in fact, both leaders had been publicly hostile toward the other, there had as of yet been no major outbreak of violence and only one minor one (a single grenade attack on a peaceful protest of the Khmer National Party, believed to have been orchestrated by Hun Sen's personal body guard). ⁽¹⁸⁾ The fact that full-scale fighting did not begin until July may indicate that as tense as the situation was, it was still adequately stable to retain some form of composure until such time as an outside and unrelated event (the Asian Financial Crisis) increased internal tensions to such a degree as to finally make conflict unavoidable. Furthermore, Hun Sen and his supporters may have intended to use the chaos brought on by the Asian Financial Crisis to discredit Ranariddh and his supporters.

III. Case Two: Myanmar

In August of 1988 the political supremacy of the Myanmar State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), now known as the State Peace Development Council (SPDC), was challenged en masse. Pro-democracy movements sprang up around the country while members of Myanmar's various ethnic groups demanded that the government begin to respect their rights as members of the Burmese federation. Fearing that this challenge would result in their removal from power, by September the SLORC reacted with force in kind.⁽¹⁹⁾ Amnesty International summarizes the situation, saying:

Since Myanmar became independent from the United
Kingdom in 1948, members of ethnic minority groups have
engaged in insurgency activities against the central Burmese Government in an effort to
gain greater autonomy or complete independence. When the military reasserted power in
September 1988 after suppressing the pro-democracy movement,
they pursued heightened offensives against ethnic minority
armed opposition groups.⁽²⁰⁾

The SLORC was both merciless and effective in its effort to crush the minorities' resistance. Human displacement numbers began to climb rapidly due to the increasingly inhospitable circumstances in which minorities found themselves. Sidney Jones notes:

There are today an estimated 1,300 political prisoners in
Burma's jails; over 1 million internally displaced persons, mainly
in ethnic minority areas; some 200,000 refugees in neighboring
countries, including Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and China;
and at least 800,000 illegal migrant workers in Thailand alone,
with several thousand more in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
The public health and education sectors have all but collapsed, with the average
per capita spending on health in 1996 a mere $0.50 per annum, while universities,
closed for over three years from June 1988 to May 1991, then again from
December 1991 to May 1992, were closed again after student demonstrations in
December 1996 and have still not reopened.⁽²¹⁾

When this is juxtaposed with reports of forced relocation projects, extrajudicial executions, forced labor and portering, rape, torture, "confiscation" of livestock, rice, money, personal belongings, and land, and arson of homes, rice barns, and mosques then it becomes quite clear that the Burmese government was actively waging total war against its own people.⁽²²⁾ The motivations behind this become clear when one takes into account the steps the SLORC takes after the initial "beating back" of the minorities:

Myanmar's military government also adopted a policy of negotiating cease-fires
individually with these groups rather than dealing with umbrella
organizations which grouped them together. Since 1989 the SLORC has agreed cease-fires with
16 armed ethnic minority groups; however, the March 1995 cease-
fire between the Karenni National Progress Party (KNPP) and the
SLORC broke down after three months. In January 1996 the SLORC
signed a cease-fire agreement with the Muang Tai Army (MTA) led by
Khun Sa in the Shan State. Nevertheless other Shan opposition groups have continued their
armed struggle against the tatmadaw [Burmese military].⁽²³⁾

The strategy is a simple one. The SLORC attacked the various militias until they no longer had the will (and perhaps the manpower and/or physical infrastructure) to maintain withdrawn military conflict. The SLORC would then negotiate cease-fire settlements with each of the different groups separately. Should any of the groups choose not to negotiate, such as the KNPP and the Muang Tai Army, then the government is now able to bring more force to bear on those groups while still retaining considerable reserves. This cease-fire situation naturally removes considerable tracts of territory and population from the direct control of the center, but the center recognizes that the necessary expenditure of resources to gain absolute sovereignty may be more than it is capable of mustering, therefore it must seek the next best thing: the preservation of the SLORC's role as the preeminent power in Myanmar. The strategy employed by the regime is readily capable of achieving this ends.

Further proof that the primary motivation for the SLORC's campaign is outright preservation of power may be illustrated through a brief discussion of economics. Simply put, Myanmar was well on its way to joining the rest of Asia in the boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s when all economic considerations were thrust aside completely. Myanmar's percent growth of GDP in 1988 was -11.4%, as compared to 4.1% the year before, a drop of 15.5%. Compare this to Thailand's 7.7% increase or China's 0.8% decrease for the same period of time. Myanmar was isolated by the international community and its economy stricken for years from both inside and out because of the SLORC's policies. The policies were obviously driven by ends perceived as utterly essential, ends which legitimated a massive net loss in wealth for both Myanmar and the ruling elite. The maintenance of authority and legitimacy is just such a motivation. It is important to note, however, that as the central government recognized its own limitations, considerations may have become of far greater importance, helping to push the government toward the acceptance of cease-fires. This is illustrated by the fact that it was not until after the SLORC began enacting cease-fires was the economy able to adequately recover to such a degree as to again experience positive growth (post-1989), and as increasing numbers of cease-fires became enacted, so to did the rate of GDP growth increases rapidly.

IV. Case Three: Irian Jaya (Indonesia)

In 1949 Indonesia gained its independence from the Netherlands. Not all of the territory which comprises modern Indonesia was, however, originally included in the federation. Known as West Irian to the Dutch, the province of Irian Jaya was claimed for Indonesia by Indonesian nationalists, but no progress was made toward incorporation until 1961. It was then that the Dutch began to prepare West Irian for independence. "In 1961," states the Human Rights Watch, "a West Papuan Council was elected, a national anthem composed, and a flag designed, and 1970 was set as the date for independence. On October 1, 1962, however, after heavy U.S. pressure, the Dutch turned West Irian over to an interim U.N. administration."⁽²⁴⁾%n of the ethnic Vietnamese as traitorous enemies within. Also inherent in this situation is ideological nationalism, the desire to form the nation and its people along particular ideological lines. This ideological nationalism is even more important, however, in the military clashes (and resulting human migrations) of 1997.

Few events in history have so violently proven the inherent destabilizing potential of nationalism as well as those which have transpired in Myanmar since 1988. Nationalism, and particularly the associated notion of the nation-state, is the root which nourishes the Burmese wars. Was it not for the nationalist aspirations of the various minority groups residing in Myanmar (and the nationalist sentiments of the ruling majority) the ills troubling that country, including the resultant human displacement, would never have transpired (this is not a moral condemnation, simply a fact).

Similarly, in Irian Jaya the supporters of the West Papuan independence movement do so precisely because they do not identify with the Indonesian nation. Rather they see themselves as the inheritors of a unique socio-cultural history, a people in and of themselves who are justly entitled to political self-determination. Their identity as "different" is further deepened by their victimist perception of history: West Papuans are a people of a backwards country, twice subjugated to the heinous crimes of colonialism, taunted with the nearness of sovereignty just decades ago, a people condemned to the national equivalent of slavery, waiting to be freed. Nationalism, in other words, has the potential to deepen or create social and political fissures among peoples "forced" to share common space and government. Therefore nationalism often is at the root of conflict, conflict itself being the root of human displacement.

Further light may be thrown onto the situation at hand by comparing the nationalistic tendencies of these states which have experience human displacements in the 1987-1997 period to states which have not. China, for instance, lacked any major human displacement (though a trickle of refugees continued to flow from Tibet) during the 1987-1997 period. With regards to nationalism, China lacked any group which identified itself as a nation that could conceivably rise against Beijing. If any attempt to found a nation-state is obviously and utterly doomed to failure, then it the likelihood of rebellion decreases exponentially. Furthermore, the PRC has actively taken steps to satiate its minorities, creating numerous autonomous and semi-autonomous zones and by actively improving conditions within minority dominated regions, institutions noticeably absent from Cambodia and Myanmar. Indeed, in the case of Indonesia we find a state that not only refuses to allow the existence of autonomous zones even as a farce (as China does, colonizing autonomous minority areas with large populations of Han). Rather, Indonesia actively and openly settles western Indonesians in Irian Jaya, an act which is not simply done, but done in such a fashion as to alienate the native population to the point of militant agitation. In China we also find a political system that rewards assimilation, whereas in Indonesia and Myanmar we find that the boundaries between the majority and the minority are not only hardened socially but are reiterated through centrally supported political limitations, particularly on citizenship and the acquisition of government office.

With regards to economics, in Southeast Asia, during the period covered, one may find that far less correlation exists between economics as a causative factor than might otherwise be predicted. Already noted is the possible relationship of the timing of the 1997 Cambodian coup to the Asian Financial Crisis, yet this remains highly conjectural and the relationship would remain only that of the economic event setting off the dynamite of a preexisting political situation. With regards to Myanmar, it would appear that economics not only were not a consideration in the initial decision to pursue massive military venture, but it was indeed ignored. However one may note a recovery of the economy in correlation to the number of military factions with whom the SLORC has signed cease-fires with. Whether economic factors helped to push the need for cease-fires, the economic recovery was simply a latent result of the cease-fires, or somewhere in between is entirely debatable. In the case of Indonesia, while no immediate ramifications of the Asian Financial Crisis have appeared in Irian Jaya, the overall situation in the archipelago has entered the critical stage. Amnesty International notes:

The effects of Indonesia's economic downturn have
been strongly felt since the beginning of 1998. Unemployment
has risen and is likely to increase even more sharply. Government
figures, thought by many observers to be overly conservative,
estimate that unemployment will reach 13.5 million and underemployment
will reach 48.6 million. Adding to the large numbers of unemployed will be the 2.5
million people who enter the labour market every year and hundreds of thousands of
Indonesian workers returning from other countries effected by
Asia's economic crisis, such as Malaysia and South Korea. All
Indonesians, employed or otherwise, are already feeling the
effect of rising prices. The cost of basic commodities has already
risen sharply, in some cases by more than 100 per cent. There is
likely to be a further dramatic increase when the government
begins to implement cuts to fuel subsidies. Wages are unlikely to
be increased to compensate for the rising prices.

With economic hardship there are fears of increased social
unrest. The expected rise in the number of unemployed will inevitably
add to the dissatisfied millions having to work harder for less financial gain.
In the absence of channels for peaceful expression,
discontent has already spilt over into violence. Riots protesting at the
deteriorating economic situation have increased in scale and spread
to outer islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The economic situation
has further shaken confidence in the political system. Demands for political reform are
becoming more widespread and vocal and there are mounting
direct challenges to [the central government]. . .⁽²⁵⁾

If this is the case than one might suspect that the growing economic dissatisfaction in Irian Jaya may lead to an increase in support for counter-center movements. This increase in pressure on the center at a time when it is least capable of countering such pressure could have dramatic ramifications.

An interesting point can be made regarding economics when the level of growth within these states is compared to that of states which had no major refugees during this period. China, Malaysia, and Vietnam all have relatively stable levels of economic growth, whereas Cambodia and Myanmar have more sporadic growth and decline. Whether the strong economies prevent events that create human displacement or it is the lack of human displacement and the concurrent events in those countries that allows for steady economic growth remains in question. The decline in the Thai economy, obviously aggravated by the Asian Financial Crisis, actually began in 1996, a year of considerable movement of displaced persons into Thailand after several other years of heavy in migration. Whether the events are in fact connected, however, remains conjectural.

Power politics may be seen as the inherent underpinning in all of the discussed human displacements. In the case of Cambodia one finds that in both cases both the forced displacements and the events encircling actively increased both the aggregate power of the "displacer" groups, thereby increasing the particular power of the elite individuals in command of these groups. Similarly, while Irian Jaya may not constitute an essential part of the federation's power, the ramifications of its achieving independence or even autonomy (achievements which, like the recent concessions to East Timor) could potentially lead to a dramatic loss of central power as other Indonesian minorities used the precedent of West Papua to push their own claims. Then there is the case of Myanmar. Here we see a central political entity, the SLORC, willingly sacrificing untold lives and resources in order to maintain its own particular political advantage. Rarely are power politics more obvious.

VI. Final Observations:

In the course of researching this topic I have come to two major conclusions outside of the primary framework of analysis. First, one of the major factors that seems to contribute to the various nations of Southeast Asia in particular is the adoption by these states of the principle of noninterference. A concept first enunciated by the PRC and India in April of 1954 then reiterated at the Bandung Conference held in Jakarta in April of 1955 as part of the "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The Principles, simply stated, were: (1) mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, (2) mutual non-aggression, (3) mutual non-interference in internal affairs, (4) equality and mutual benefit, (5) and peaceful coexistence.⁽²⁶⁾ By adhering to these principles, the states acknowledge that their relations will be government to government relations and that within their borders a government truly has imminent domain. This assures states in Southeast Asia that "dissidents" within their borders will not be supported by their neighbors. This therefore increases their willingness to use force to a degree which, under a moralizing scheme in which their neighbors reserved the right to intervene in the internal affairs of their neighbors, might be too risky. Indeed, many Southeast Asian states do not even recognize the refugees residing within their borders as refugees, but rather as "displaced persons" (therefore not covered under international agreements on refugee protection) or illegal aliens, allowing them the right of expulsion or deportation at anytime.⁽²⁷⁾

My second observation is that, with regards to Southeast Asian refugees at least, records are unacceptably poor. This is not a condemnation of the lack of precise and fully accurate statistics from the sites themselves, which is understandable considering the spontaneous and sporadic nature of human displacement, but rather the failure of all the major organs dealing with human displacement (the UNHCR, USCR, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc.) to create a document or documents which give a simple and systematic comprehensive breakdown of statistics regarding human displacement and which lay out statistics in an organized and approachable manner. This complicates any effort to gain broader insight of particular, regional, and global refugee and internally displaced person movements.