CHAPTER 1:PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
A. A HISTORY OF ASIAN MIGRATION
scrutinizing developments in major refugee-exporting states in the region, it may be possible to determine how an interplay of national policies, international norms, and domestic factors affect refugee movements within the region.
In this study, the researcher presents an alternative means of interpreting how refugee flows are likely influenced by elements present in candidate asylum countries.
A. A History of Asian Migration
When discussing literature about human flows, it may be difficult not to consider Asia given its huge territorial space. Covering a total of 44.58 million km2, the continent is home to 4.5 billion people distributed among 48 countries. With its vastness, the continent is not only divided by physical and territorial demarcations but also by ideological, political, and cultural differences. In the expanse of human history, Asia has been a hub of activities that ranges from the conquests of various civilizations (colonization of South and Southeast Asian territories being a common feature for several centuries) to the escalation and diffusion of wars, which has resulted to hundreds of thousands of people displaced annually. At the end of 2014, a total of 59.5 million people had been displaced globally, of which 19.5 million are refugees.5 Asia’s share of the burden was at 8.7 million people of concern, with refugees at 3.6 million.
Within one year, the global refugee total exceeded its threshold of 20.2 million or 0.21%
of the world population.6 The figures had been rising in recent years, fueled by ongoing wars in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.7 Within the first six months alone, some 839,000 refugees found themselves leaving their home in search of safer environments.8
Southeast Asia is not at all unfamiliar with the refugee phenomenon as quite a fair share of human movements can be seen throughout the entirety of the 20th Century.
There having only recent occurrences involving boat migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh as a fraction of the totality. In fact, there appears to be a repeat of
5 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
"Unhcr Global Trends 2014: World at War," last modified 8 April 2016, accessed.
http://unhcr.org/556725e69.html.
6 UNHCR Mid-Year Trends
7 The upward trend of refugee flows has been mainly due to the wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mai, Somalia, South Sudan, and Ukraine. Ibid., 4.
8 Ibid.
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experiences among Southeast Asian refugees in terms of method of movements. Jean Michaud mentions that there had been two notable refugee movements in the 20th Century, one of which involved the use of boats to flee the origin state, to which the Rohingya migrants are reminiscent of. The process by which refugees in the 1970s to the 1990s were resettled was made possible through the supervision of the UNHCR: by first setting up camps that received and housed migrants (often segregated according to the country of origin) and then filtered through processing centers. (Michaud, 2006)Of the Southeast Asian states, Thailand is probably the one with the most direct involvement with refugees, it having been both a transit country and destination since the 1970s. It is then curious why, as can be recalled, Thailand was reluctant in providing temporary shelter to the boat migrants in 2015.9 While the ASEAN and its member states are all party to the United Nations and work closely with the UNHCR, not all are parties to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. This complicates the process of delegating resettlement responsibilities at the height of refugee crises. As of 2015, only the Philippines (acceded July 22, 1981) and Cambodia (acceded October 15, 1992) have signed and ratified the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol. In the technical sense of things, the remaining eight states, not being party to the two documents, are not obligated to receive, let alone acknowledge requests for asylum.
Such reluctance to taking in refugees is not unheard of among the ASEAN member states as the case was the same in the aftermath of the Vietnam War which witnessed the departure of thousands of Hmong refugees from Communist Indo-China, particularly the then newly established Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV).10
The different periods that saw significant refugee movements within the ASEAN region were met with different approaches. While the ideal scenario is for the member states to draw a comprehensive solution, the response has been vague in recent years. The ASEAN's role in the diffusion of occurring refugee crises in Southeast Asia had been coherent with the stand of its members on particular matters. In fact, its response, or lack thereof, to a crisis rests on how the organization is structured and its governing principles. As previously mentioned, only two of the Association's members
9 Joe Cochrane, "Indonesia and Malaysia Agree to Care for Stranded Migrants" The New York Times, 2015, accessed May 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/world/asia/indonesia-malaysia-rohingya-bangladeshi-migrants-agreement.html.
10 Alexander Betts and Gil Loescher, Refugees in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2011), 70-73.
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are signatories to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, making it difficult or nearly improbable to expect regional cooperation for the drafting of options. Never was this more evident than during the period of the Indochina Refugee Crisis (1975 to 1996), as refugees and asylum-seekers from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam flowed out to escape post-1975 upheavals resulting from socioeconomic and political decay from the war. These waves of departure from Indochina, particularly Vietnam, were met with criticisms from ASEAN states, to which Vietnam responded with a “moratorium” to curb the number of fleeing refugees.11 Frank Frost (1980) mentioned that the outpouring of refugees into other parts of Southeast Asia posed three challenges to ASEAN states: 1) Challenged the capacity to respond effectively and in a humanitarian manner, 2) Challenged their ability to organize themselves to immediately cushion the impact of the crisis and to minimize dissent, and 3) Challenged the ASEAN's capability of exerting pressure both on member states and the international community to resettle refugees. As a three-way agreement was made among the refugees' countries of origin, countries of first asylum and countries of resettlement. Indonesia and the Philippines were identified as regional processing centers which expedited the resettlement from 9,000 per month to 25,000 per month. (Cutts, 2000)Despite the successes of the agreement, the responses of member states and their population varied greatly. Refugee boat arrivals were unpredictable and disproportionate, where some receiving states saw more arrivals than others (see Table 1). The Philippines, a signatory to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, did not see the arrival of refugees as a domestic risk, owing to the fact that arrivals were not as frequent due to its distance. Thailand, after receiving huge numbers of refugees (often by boat), authorized officials to resupply arriving boats to eventually be pushed back to sea. Singapore was stringent on its migration policy and as such refused to accept refugee boats, limiting assistance to repair and resupply (similar to Thailand).
Singapore justified its action by its smaller size relative to other ASEAN states.
Malaysia received an increasing number of refugee boats in succeeding years due to its proximity and accessibility via sea route. Aside from the risk of transmitting diseases, the ballooning number of refugees has contributed to rising commodity prices due to UNHCR's purchases for supplies. As a measure, the government isolated arriving
11 The moratorium was implemented by Vietnam following a conference on refugees that same year in July at Geneva, Switzerland.
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5 refugees to areas far from Malaysian locals. Further measures of improving control of arriving boats were implemented through the "shoo off" policy, which towed refugee boats back to sea. Indonesia's case was similar to Malaysia, except that refugees were viewed with suspicion of being in guise since many of the Indochinese were ex-servicemen. (Frost, 1980)
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B. Statement of the ProblemInternational human migrations have been a recurring concern for governments all over the world, to the extent of posing as a threat to national security for some. A common case where the entry of refugees (or asylum-seekers) has become a risk is in the event of widespread xenophobia, resulting to conflicts with locals and new migrants.12 Racist attacks are commonplace, endangering not only newly arrived populations, but also others who may have already acquired citizenship or are first-generation citizens born from migrant parents. Conflicts between local populations and migrants are prevented due in part to the existence of national and international mechanisms addressing the issue of migration and human rights in general, as well as efforts between the government and institutions in the private sector focusing on these areas. Of the 147 states that are party to the 1951 Convention, 146 adhere to its optional 1967 Protocol. All of the twenty-eight European Union member states have signed and ratified the two documents, but only two ASEAN states have done so. The reality of these figures depict the difficulty of pressuring Southeast Asian leaders into accepting responsibility over a number of humanitarian crises within the region. In line with the aforesaid, this paper poses the question, “In what way do national policies, international mechanisms, and local affairs influence the flow of forced migrants within the Southeast Asian region?”
C. Objective of the Study
In conducting this study, the researcher acknowledges the link established between refugee flows and political and socio-cultural factors thus aiming to verify this by determining how trends of refugee movements towards the Southeast Asian region are influenced by existing national policies concerning refugees, membership to transnational institutions and conventions, as well as socio-cultural and economic structures of a given country; key events that have taken place in a particular time period may also serve as a basis of measure for said trends.
By assessing the trends behind refugee movements, it would be possible to further understand the overall nature of peoples of concern in the region, or at the very
12 Alan Dowty and Gil Loescher, "Refugee Flows as Grounds for International Action," International Security 21, no. 1 (1996): 48-49, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2539108.
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least have a comprehension of the distinctness of Southeast Asia’s experiences compared to its counterparts.D. Hypothesis
The refugee crises that Southeast Asia has experienced in the 20th and 21st Centuries are fairly recent developments relative to Europe and the Middle East.
Refugee movements in the region from 1970 to present had been a matter of interest as these flows have become increasingly indicative of recurring trends, albeit being born of differing circumstances. This paper demonstrates that, due to international and national policies, enduring international norms, and domestic elements, Southeast Asia's refugee phenomena persist and observes a peculiar movement.
E. Significance of the Study
The findings of this study redounds to the understanding of the Southeast Asian experience of forced migration, considering that this region’s history on the subject is fairly young in comparison to the rest of the world. Proper categorization of refugee flows on a trend pattern determined by political, socio-cultural, and historical indicators would aid future research on other migration experiences both in the region and elsewhere. For the researcher, the study will enable him to further the cause of Southeast Asian studies on the realm of refugee and migration issues that have been merely a footnote to previous research, mainly to expound on global occurrences. Given the uniqueness Southeast Asia’s circumstances, a new model13 may be arrived at in future research while having this study as a foundation.
F. Scope and Limitation
As mentioned earlier, it was in the 1970s that Southeast Asia had it first major ordeal with forced migrations that have resulted in asylum-seeking within the region.
Such displacements challenged the stability of the region, and with only five states being members to the then very young ASEAN, it was not possible for the Association to actively weigh in on the problem. Nearly fifty years after, the case is no longer the same as previously identified origins of regional refugees are now part of the
13 It is the researcher’s intention to continue and expand this study using detailed migration histories of refugees to better analyze characteristics and circumstances behind their movements.
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9 member strong ASEAN, each being signatory to the AHRD. For the intent of this paper, data to be analyzed are limited to the years:
a. Covered by the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol;
b. When the ASEAN has already been in existence; and
c. With available, recognized records from either the UNHCR or existing public state records.14
Further limiting the coverage of this paper, only countries that had either been a major source of or major destination of refugees and/or asylum-seekers between 1975 and 2015 will be given considerable mention. Countries considered are the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia for the receiving states (destination and first asylum or settlement), and the Indochina countries (1975 to 1996)15 comprised of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and, more recently, Myanmar.
Given the time constraint and unavailability of some data sets at the time of writing, analysis of country data will be kept to preliminary level with intent of being continued in a future study.
14 Obvious limitation throughout the study existed due to Myanmar statistics being inaccessible both through private and public means. Correspondence with organizations working on the ground repeatedly failed to yield more accurate data.
15 The inclusive years varied greatly among different references with the range extending from 1975 to the early 2000s. (see Steenhuisen)
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G. Definition of Terms Asylum-seekers are “persons who have applied for asylum or refugee status, but who have not yet received a final decision on their application.” 16
Inbound (migration) pertains to the movement of refugees towards a destination/receiving country.
Internally displaced people (IDP) are, as defined by the UNHCR, “people or groups of individuals who have been forced to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of, or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural- or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an international border.”17
Migrants are people who are able to and choose to relocate in order to improve their situation in life. They may choose to return home (unlike refugees), free from the threat of persecution and are able to acquire protection from their government.18
Outbound (migration) pertains to the movement of refugees away from a former home country or former country of asylum.
Refugee as defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention as someone “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”19
Typological analysis was defined by LeCompte & Preissle (1993) as "dividing everything observed into groups or categories on the basis of some canon for disaggregating the whole phenomenon under study."
16 UNHCR, "Unhcr Statistical Online Population Database: Sources, Methods and Data Considerations," accessed April 9, 2016. http://www.unhcr.org/45c06c662.html#refugees.
17 Ibid.
18 UNHCR, "Unhcr Viewpoint: 'Refugee' or 'Migrant' - Which Is Right?," accessed April 9, 2016.
http://www.unhcr.org/55df0e556.html.
19 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Text of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Text of the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951).
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11 CHAPTER II
Review of Related Literature and Studies
Refugee studies and International Relations (IR) are often confusedly used together, as though the study of one excludes the other, but this is no further from the truth. In the words of Jennifer Hyndman, they are 'two solitudes.' It is fortunate, however, that there had been massive efforts in bridging this gap, owing to the fact that IR has become more inclusive, transcending its empirical traditions. IR tackles cooperation among states, the complexity of human rights, the role of international organizations, and international security among others, all of which are relevant if not directly connected to forced migration. IR also allows for the study of specific areas of interest, where, when zoomed in, exhibits semblances of forced migration cases. For example, a vast number of written literature has been published on refugee and migration issues, but only few that highlight Southeast Asia. As an attempt to contribute to this pursuit of bridging the IR-forced migration divide, the researcher will have compiled works related to forced migration studies, particularly on refugees in this chapter.
A. Forced migration theories
In the search for the ideal theory to explain contemporary refugee issues, it was only apt to return to the roots of migration theory studies. Russel King20 offered an abridged version of Ravenstein’s “laws of migration”21 as such:
1. Migrants move mainly over short distances; those going longer distances head for the great centres (sic) of industry and commerce.
2. Most migration is from agricultural to industrial areas.
3. Large towns grow more by migration than by natural increase.
20 Russell King, "Theories and Typologies of Migration: An Overview and a Primer," Willy Brandt series of working papers in international migration and ethnic relations 3 (2012): 12.
21 E. G. Ravenstein, "The Laws of Migration," Journal of the Statistical Society of London 48, no. 2 (1885), http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2979181.
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4. Migration increases along with the development of industry, commerce and transport.5. Each migration stream produces a counterstream (sic).
6. Females are more migratory than males, at least over shorter distances; males are a majority in international migration.
7. The major causes of migration are economic.
While there are obvious advantages in alluding to these fundamentals of migration theory, it should be noted that the conceptions were suited for the times, and, in the words of Samers22 are already 'economically deterministic,' and 'dreadfully antiquated.' And with the limited scope of Ravenstein’s laws merely to internal (domestic) migrations, they should be left only as such—references for more modern approaches. Furthermore, while economics has been a central element in Ravenstein’s laws, other studies argue that the case is not true when explaining human migration often due to the “complex convergence” of factors beyond economic measures.23
King further points out the evolution of the migration studies discourse, as exemplified by leading scholars Stephen Castles, Thomas Faist, and Alejandro Portes.24 The three have furthered migration by including it in the more encompassing areas of social realities, highlighting that migration is an essential element of "national and global social change." Whereas Portes25 argues that migration’s effects on receiving countries are significant but non-impactful, to some extent reinforcing existing norms (social structures), Castles26 suggests that migration is central in social transformation capable of influencing even global systems. It is for this reason that Castles and King (2010) share the same view that migration studies is an area that fits and calls on diverse disciplines in the social sciences as it "embraces all dimensions of human experience,
King further points out the evolution of the migration studies discourse, as exemplified by leading scholars Stephen Castles, Thomas Faist, and Alejandro Portes.24 The three have furthered migration by including it in the more encompassing areas of social realities, highlighting that migration is an essential element of "national and global social change." Whereas Portes25 argues that migration’s effects on receiving countries are significant but non-impactful, to some extent reinforcing existing norms (social structures), Castles26 suggests that migration is central in social transformation capable of influencing even global systems. It is for this reason that Castles and King (2010) share the same view that migration studies is an area that fits and calls on diverse disciplines in the social sciences as it "embraces all dimensions of human experience,