Vietnamese and Other East Asiatic Migrations to Argentina

PIZARRO, CYNTHIA ALEJANDRA

Conferencia; III International Scientific and Practical Conference Migration in the Russian Federation, Vietnam and Asian Countries in the Context of New Geopolitical Realities and Economic Integration; 2016

Since 1975, after the communist victory in Vientam and Camboya and Lao, there was a great exodus of more than 3.000.000. Refugees situation was chaotic. UN called for an International Conference in 1979 to try to solve this problem. Agreement to increase the reception of refugees of UN countries, Vietnam agreed to stop the illegal emigration and to promote ordered and direct emigrations. Indonesia and the Philippines established centers in order to accelerate the resettlement.In spite of the state terrorism (tortured and missing people) and of the extremely restrictive migration policy of Argentine military dictatorship 1974-1982, the government accepted to receive a number of refugees in order to show an image of comprise to humanitarian issues and the respect of human rights. Even though 1000 families were accepted, only 293 arrived in the country. Most of them came from Laos (266), and the rest from Cambodia (21) and Vietnam (6). They were approximately 1270 persons. By the end of the program, in march 1984, there were 1471 people. Many had been born in Thailand refugee camps