CAMBODIA:
HUNDREDS OF MONTAGNARDS FORCED TO TAKE REFUGE IN THE JUNGLE. UNHCR
“UNABLE TO CARRY OUT ITS DUTIES”.
Brussels, 26 September 2002. Worrying news reports from
South-east Asia describe what amounts to a full-fledged manhunt, with
Cambodian and Vietnamese police hunting down hundreds of Montagnards
forced to take refuge in the jungle to flee religious and political
persecution at the hands of the Hanoi authorities. The reports confirm
a situation that the Montagnard Foundation and the Transnational
Radical Party have been denouncing for months, the reason behind the
demonstrations which will be held on Saturday 21 September in 103
countries around the world.
The closure of the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, together with
the closure of the refugee camps in Cambodia, is the prelude to
further massacres of Montagnards, persecuted ferociously by the
Communist regime in Hanoi because of their demands for religious and
political freedom, and now barred from leaving the country.
The Director of UNHCR in Cambodia, Nilcola Mihailovic, has denounced
the situation as follows: “Since February/March we have not been
allowed to go to the border… and even if we are in that province we
are not allowed to move about freely”. Recalling the fact that next
month is the tenth anniversary of the signing by Cambodia of the
Convention on refugees, Mr. Mihailovic stressed that “the (Cambodian)
government must be reminded of its obligations towards refugees”.
The European Union, and in particular the President of the Commission
Romano Prodi, who met the Vietnamese Prime Minister earlier today, can
no longer continue to finance these regimes in South- east Asia and
then remain silent in the face of the continuous, systematic
atrocities which seem increasingly to represent a wide and
carefully-planned campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The Europe of Munich created millions of victims. Does the Europe of
Brussels want to follow the same road?
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