|
Operation New Life (23 April – 1 November 1975) was the care and processing on Guam of Vietnamese refugees evacuated from Saigon by Operation Frequent Wind in the closing days of the Vietnam War. More than 111,000 of the evacuated 130,000 Vietnamese refugees were transported to Guam where they were housed in tent cities for a few weeks while being processed for resettlement. The great majority of the refugees were resettled in the United States. A few thousand were resettled in other countries or chose to return to Vietnam on the vessel ''Tuong Tin''. ==Background== In April 1975, as the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) advanced on Saigon, the United States carried out a massive and chaotic evacuation of Americans, nationals of allied countries, and Vietnamese who had worked for or been closely associated with the U.S. during the Vietnam War. To deal with the refugees, President Gerald Ford on 18 April 1975 created the Interagency Task Force (IATF) for Indochina, a dozen government agencies with the responsibility to transport, process, receive and resettle Indochinese refugees, nearly all Vietnamese, in the United States. Ford appointed L. Dean Brown of the Department of State to head Operation New Life. Later he was replaced by Julia V. Taft of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).〔"Department of the Army After Action Report Operations New Life/New Arrivals" http://detic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/aO36359.pdf, accessed 16 Dec 2013〕 To finance Operation New Life the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act was adopted on 23 May 1975. This act allocated funding of $305 million for the State Department and $100 million for HEW.〔"Public Law 94-24", 23 May 1975. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-89/pdf/STATUTE-89-Pg89.pdf, accessed 26 Dec 2013〕 Nearby countries in Southeast Asia declined to accept the Vietnamese evacuees, fearing that they would have them on their soil permanently. However, Governor Ricardo Bordallo, agreed to grant the Vietnamese temporary asylum on Guam, some from Saigon. On April 23, Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison, commander of U.S. Naval forces on Guam (and the father of singer Jim Morrison), was ordered to "accept, shelter, process and care for refugees as they were removed from South Vietnam."〔Thompson, Larry Clinton ''Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975-1982'', Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, 2010, p. 63; "George S. Morrison, Admiral and Singer's Father, Dies at 89" ''The New York Times'', 8 Dec 2008〕 More than 130,000 Vietnamese were evacuated from Vietnam by air and sea during the last few days of April. A few went to other locations, such as Wake Island, but most were transported to Guam by U.S. and Vietnamese naval ships, commercial vessels and military and commercial aircraft. A total of 111,919 Vietnamese would be housed temporarily and processed for entry into the United States on Guam. That total included 2,600 orphans and abandoned children evacuated from Vietnam under Operation Babylift who transited Guam on 3 and 4 April en route to the United States.〔"Operation New Life" http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/ew_life.htm, accessed 20 Dec 2013〕 Guam had a substantial U.S. military presence to care for the Vietnamese refugees. Andersen Air Force Base on the northern end of the island was the U.S.'s biggest B-52 base and Naval Base Guam was a large deep-water port for naval vessels. Typhoons frequently impact Guam and the military and civilian personnel involved in Operation New Life feared that a typhoon would strike Guam while the Vietnamese were living in tents and unprotected from the elements, but no typhoon hit Guam in 1975.〔Mackie, Richard ''Operation Newlife: The Untold Story'' Concord, CA: Solution Publishing, 1998, p. 53〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation New Life」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|