Lionel Rosenblatt

Lionel Rosenblatt was president of Refugees International. "Earlier, as a foreign service officer, Rosenblatt served in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Thailand. He was founder and chief of the Refugee Section at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok (1975-1976) and later served as refugee coordinator and director of the Khmer Emergency Group during the 1978-81 crisis. Rosenblatt was director of the Office of Special Concerns, Interagency Task Force for Indochinese Refugees as the State Department, laying fundamental groundwork for the Southeast Asian Refugee program." 

"Mr. Lionel Rosenblatt, President Emeritus since 2001, served as President of Refugees International for 10 years, expanding the organization's early warning/early action advocacy on humanitarian emergencies. As President Emeritus, Mr. Rosenblatt now focuses on Southeast Asia and strategic advocacy issues such as peacekeeping. Before working for RI, he was a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State for more than twenty years. Much of his State Department experience centered on refugee and humanitarian emergencies, including the exodus of Indochinese refugees and the humanitarian emergency in Cambodia.

"In 1975, he served as a senior member of the Interagency Task Force, which resettled the 130,000 Vietnamese refugees rescued at the Fall of Saigon. His final act for the Task Force was a tour of Southeast Asia, which revealed many worthy refugees still needful of American assistance. His trip report laid the foundation for an ongoing Indochinese refugee program. During subsequent years, Mr. Rosenblatt served simultaneously as the Refugee Coordinator at the key post of Bangkok and as the program's senior liaison on Capitol Hill. His work on these two fronts was vital to the program's success in dealing with the years of the Vietnamese boat refugee crisis." also see


 * Advisory Committee, Washington Kurdish Institute