Quora Answer: Why Does Singapore Escape Criticism in the Media When It Comes to Rejecting the Rohingyas?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why does Singapore escape criticism in the media when it comes to rejecting the Rohingyas?” 

Singapore has an unambiguous position about accepting refugees: we do not take them in.  This was not always so.  In 1975, with the fall of Saigon, Singapore was inundated with thousands of Vietnamese refugees.  This was a Singapore just a decade from independence, a developing country of limited resources.  She certainly did not have the space to take them all in permanently, and neither did these refugees want to be in Singapore.  They hoped to move on to Australia, the US, Canada, and elsewhere in the developed world. 

In the beginning, Singapore worked with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and had an agreement to provide these refugees with temporary care, and housing while the UNHCR arranged permanent resettlement elsewhere.  This was done in good faith.  In the meantime, the number of refugees kept increasing, from the initial political refugees to the later economic refugees, all seeking a better life.  This peaked in 1979, 1980; but boat people were found well into the 1990s.  By that period, it was not just Vietnamese but Cambodians, and some Laotians.  In 1989, the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Indochinese Refugees held a conference in Geneva.  All the countries of ASEAN, except Brunei, were present.  After a contentious meeting, Singapore and all first asylum countries adopted the Comprehensive Plan of Action, which classified further boat people as asylum seekers and not refugees, until they were screened and classified as such. 

Singapore’s transit camp, such as Hawkins camp, were full, and space was rapidly running out.  With this new policy, later arrivals were no longer guaranteed resettlement.  At the same time, many of the second asylum countries reneged on their agreements and refused to take in most of these refugees.  The camps became the home of rejected asylum seekers.  This lead to violence, protests, and attempted suicides; further stressing the government.  This was why we have a hardline refugee policy.  By the middle of 1996, the Hawkins Road Camp was officially closed.  Between 1978 and 1996, a total of 32,457 Vietnamese refugees had stayed there.  While many of them did manage to get resettled in places such as the United States and Australia, most of them were paid by the Singapore government to go home. 

Since then, Singapore does not take in any refugees.  They are given food, water, and fuel, and they are towed to sea, away from our territorial waters.  In the early days, this was a death sentence to some groups because the boats were hardly seaworthy.  In that, we could have done better.  This was Operation Midnight Owl, by the Marine Police and the Republic of Singapore Navy.  Picket lines were set up at sea to intercept these boats before they reached shore. 

Now, when it comes to the Rohingya, Singapore has not encountered any refugees.  Most boats coming south and east end up in Malaysia and Sumatra, Indonesia.  The Malacca Straits is far too busy for them to get all the way south to Singapore without being detected by maritime patrols from Malaysia and Indonesia.  Malaysia is a favoured destination since Malaysia is known to take in refugees, and Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country.  In the event that Singapore maritime patrols do detect such votes as they approach Sultan Shoal, they would abide by our policy of detaining them at sea, providing food, water, and fuel as per UN guidelines, and have them towed out of our territorial waters.  Under no circumstances would we be accepting them.