Vietnamese Boat Refugees Are Marking 50 Years as Exiles in Norway

A total of 1,680 refugees came to Norway in 1978–79. The largest group was the so-called “Vietnamese boat people”. Last Saturday, Vietnamese boat refugees and their families gathered in Mjøndalen outside Drammen to mark 50 years as exiles in Norway.

After the communists took control of South Vietnam, many of those who had supported the South Vietnamese government were persecuted and imprisoned. It is estimated that over a million people have tried to escape, many of them in small boats. The Vietnamese were therefore called “boat people”. Many of them were picked up by Norwegian ships.

The number of boat people leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totaled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, overcrowded boats, and storms. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea.

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Saved from certain death

42 years ago, a group of Vietnamese refugees were saved from certain death on the high seas by the Norwegian Høegh vessel MS Dyvi Kattegat. There was a touching moment in Mjøndalen last week, when one of the rescued people embraced two of the crew involved in the rescue operation on 12 August 1983.

The ship came to a full stop for a small, old, and very battered boat full of people. Thirty-two survivors of all ages who had fled by boat from their homeland, Vietnam, were saved from certain death. Small children, old men, young women, and some strong youth.

Norwegian ships rescued around 6,000 Vietnamese boat people, and vessels from many other nations also picked up the refugees.

The most successful of all non-Western immigrants to Norway

Billy Taranger, head of the Main Committee for Work, Activity and Inclusion in Drammen Municipality, said, “The Vietnamese refugees thank us for receiving them with open arms. We should thank them for coming. The Vietnamese seem to be the most successful of all non-Western immigrants to Norway. Some of them are my neighbors. They have been remarkably flexible and adaptable. They wanted to be integrated. They were determined to be part of ‘the Norwegian dream’. Perhaps they have been more willing than other immigrant groups to work with whatever they got and accept the situation as it was.”

A gift, given in gratitude

The sculpture Sjøblomst (Sea Flower) is a gift, given in gratitude after a fundraising campaign, from Vietnamese boat refugees and their descendants. The memorial is a gift to Norway and Norwegian society. Sjøblomst stands in the water east of Bygdøynes and was created by sculptor Thor Sandborg.

The Project Group erected the monument for the Vietnamese Refugee Memorial. Sjøblomst is managed by the Department of Culture in the Municipality of Oslo.

Vietnam’s embassy protests

Vietnam is still a one-party state with a communist system of government, the same regime from which several 100,000 Vietnamese refugees escaped in the 1970s and 1980s, and around 6,000 came to Norway as boat people.

Vietnam established an embassy in Norway three years ago.

“We boat people have not wanted an embassy here in Norway,” says Duc Nguyen. Many of the refugees are still critical of the current regime, and several of them have been refused entry to Vietnam after speaking out critically about the conditions in their homeland.

The embassy has requested several meetings with Oslo politicians and the Norwegian Maritime Museum on Bygdøy to try to stop the sea flower.

“We are afraid that the memorial could be used for political purposes,” explains the ambassador of Vietnam to Norway, Ta Van Thong.

Oslo City Councilor for Urban Development, Bård Folke Fredriksen from the Conservative Party, confirms that the embassy has tried to stop the memorial through several inquiries.

“The embassy alleged in meetings with us that those who fled Vietnam want to undermine Vietnam, and that they fear that the memorial will be used against the authorities. We will not let ourselves be dictated by such an attempt at censorship, and we have told the embassy so,” says the city councilor.

Even though the Vietnamese call Norway “home” and are unusually well-integrated, they are and will always be Vietnamese.

Vietnamese Boat Refugees Are Marking 50 Years as Exiles in Norway, Tor Kjolberg reporting.

Feature image (top) © Jon Arne Foss