Pulau Bidong Island

by Lamvi Dao, Rosli Mohamad, and Ghani Ibrahim

In Malaysian, Pulau means island. Bidong island is belonged to Malaysia.

At one time, this small island housed more than 40,000 refugees and only a tiny portion of its south side was used.

Tourism Terengganu - Pulau Bidong

Geography
It is located in the northeast of Kuala Terengganu city and Merang town. It can be reached by boat for approximately 40 – 50 minutes.

Early years
On August 8^th, 1978, Bidong was officially open to house refugees. From 1978 until 1991, the island was mostly home to Vietnamese refugee Boat People, who escaped Vietnam to flee Communists. In the late 70s, Pulau Bidong was also home to Cambodians, who tried to flee the Khmer Rouge regime, Chinese-Vietnamese, who tried to escape Vietnamese Government.

Housing
In 1978, Malaysian Government and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) started to use Bidong to house mainly Vietnamese refugees. In the early years, people lived under the trees, tents, or anything they could find to avoid the tropical hot sun, rain, and storms. As years went by, Malaysian Government, Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS) and UNHCR organized the island into a more orderly conducted. It had longhouses, hospital, schools, clinics, temple, church, coffee shops, post office, vocational school, and refugee owned shops like bakery shops, tailor shops, fruit stands, small markets etc.

At one time, there were up to 40,000 refugees lived in the designated area, which is rounded by the white line.

Food
In the early years, food was scarce but eventually food was much more adequate: plenty of instant noodles, condensed milk, green bean, sugar, chicken, fish, and vegetables. In 1990, due to excessive supply of instant noodles, that were wasted, each person was given 5 packs of instant noodles per week instead of 7 packs.

Bidong had so many fishes around the island. They were also a main source of food to the refugees.

There were at least two Malaysian owned grocery stores, that carried many other goods. Boat People owned mini grocery stores and city live market were popping up quick as well.

Fresh (drinking) water was always an issue, which had to be transported from mainland by boat. We called it Supplied Water. As people would stay longer for screening, this was the case for who arrived after March 14^th, 1989, many wells were dug by the refugee to be used for bathe, cooking, and farming.

Security
Malaysian Police Taskforce was organized and did excellent job to protect people from getting hurt such as illegal fishing, illegal wandering into the mountain for wood, crimes, and order. Jail like Monkey House was established to jail those who violated the island policies. Later, they set up Security offices in each residence zone along with the main Island Camp office, which refugee people were voted or appointed to help out order, nightly patrol, and security of everyone.

The forbidden area covered 90% of the island. Only the small portion of the south side was used for UNHCR offices, and refugee housing.

March 14^th, 1989
To stop waves of boat people, who kept leaving Vietnam, the UNHCR posted March 14th of 1989 as a closing date for “automatic acceptance to the third country”. For those arrived the island after this closing date, they had to go through screening processes, which they must proved that they were political refugee and not economical refugees. They were also given three chances to prove their political status. Due to this screening process, over 9,000 refugees were repatriated back to Vietnam from Malaysia because they were not qualified for political status. However, majority of these repatriated refugees were again given another chance from Vietnam by the UNHCR and most of them were granted asylum in third countries, thereafter.

Also, for those arrived after March 14th, 1989, they spent longer time on Pulau Bidong until it was closed down in October, 1991 and Sungei Besi Refugee Center in Kuala Lumpur. The average time was between 2 – 3 years. However, some of them would spend more 10 years in hopping to “pass” the screening. Unfortunately, some of these long time residents were repatriated to Vietnam.

These are two press releases from UN’s regarding the closing date or cut-off date.