UN General Assembly
1979

83. No event in recent memory has so stirred—as it still does—the conscience of the world as the plight of these refugees. Among them are the boat people. Believing in a better life elsewhere they risk life itself by setting out in unseaworthy boats for destinations they know hardly anything about. The estimates of the numbers of those who did not make it run into the hundreds of thousands and this must horrify all of us. Just as in the case of mass involuntary movements elsewhere in the world, how long can mankind live with such instances of man's inhumanity to man? 84. But the suffering of the refugees is only half of the story. There is the other side of the picture—the misery and the serious social, economic and political repercussions on the countries of first asylum, the majority of which belong to ASEAN.