AMID the current Rohingya refugee crisis, comparisons are being made with the Vietnamese Boat People (VBPs), many of whom arrived in Malaysia in the late 1970s and 1980s. Could we address the current crisis as we did with the VBPs?
I’m afraid that’s unrealistic. Malaysia was able to resettle VBPs in third countries. There is little prospect of doing so with the Rohingya. The resettlement of the VBPs was part and parcel of the ideological struggle of the Cold War.
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