COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS FIFTY-NINTH SESSION
STATEMENT BY THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY, DELIVERED BY Mr. Kok Ksor,

Madame Chair,

My name is Kok Ksor, I am a member of the General Council of the Transnational Radical Party and I speak on its behalf today on the situation of the indigenous Montagnards or Degar Peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, that in the hundreds have decided to join the TRP over the last couple of years.

The very existence of the Degar is no neglected that it is virtually impossible to assess how many were living in Indo China (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) during the French Colonization and how many have remained to these days after decades of brutal repression between. The Montagnards are a peaceful people, who over the years have struggled to keep their culture alive despite their being at the center of a series of campaigns and policies that are running the risk to cancel their presence, cultures, traditions and customs from the beautiful central highlands of South East Asia.

Madame (or Mr.) Chairperson, over the last few years, I have been able to participate in a series of meetings of the UN Working Group on Indigenous issues presenting the dramatic situation of the Degar people; unfortunately, all our efforts, have been unable to address the situation in an effective way and lately my organization, the TRP, has faced some serious problems for its courageous stance on the issue of the indigenous Montagnards within the UN system.
The Transnational Radical Party - together with other NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International - has been one of the few a vocal groups on human rights abuses happing in Vietnam on a variety of issues and on the ethnic Montagnards in particular, abuses that go beyond the violation of our “indigenous rights”.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented that over 260 Montagnards have been imprisoned and many subjected to electric shock torture.

On 29 October 2002 prison authorities gave lethal injections to three Christian Montagnards (named Y-Suon Mlo, Y-Het Nie Kdam and Y-Wan Ayun) who died in their prison cells.

On February 27, 2003, at the ‘secret’ military camp at Buon Cu Mblim, Dak Lac province Vietnamese soldiers executed 3 more Degars whose names are yet unknown.

On March 26, 2003, soldiers in the area of Dir Tok, Gia Lai province shot and wounded Montagnards washing in a river.

Distinguished members of the Commission, the TRP believes that these information, that cannot be verified by international observers, is only the tip of the iceberg. The Central Highland are under a regime of Martial law, people just disappear after arrest, some are sentenced to prison after being tortured, while those who try to flee to Cambodia are forcibly deported back by Cambodian police and sold to Vietnam for bounties.

This is the climate of fear and terror that the Degar people are enduring!

Not only we have been denied access, ownership and use of our ancestral lands, and have stripped of our culture and life habits, but over the last couple of years, we have been the target of a violent campaign based on racial discrimination – and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has issued a series of concerns in this regard in August 2001 - that has tried to strip the Montagnards also of their fundamental civil and political rights.

And on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party I would like to commend the efforts that the UN has made to point that out.
In fact, at its July 2002 session, the UN Human Rights Committee, in its final observations stated that, and I quote “the Committee regrets the lack of information on the human rights situation in practice, as well as the absence of facts and data on the implementation of the [International] Covenant[on Civil and Political Rights]. As a result, a number of credible and substantiated allegations of violations of Covenant provisions which have been brought to the attention of the Committee could not be addressed effectively and the Committee found it difficult to determine whether individuals in the State party's territory and subject to its jurisdiction fully and effectively enjoy their fundamental rights under the Covenant”. Moreover “the Committee remains concerned at the abundance of information regarding the treatment of the Degar (Montagnard) indicating serious violations of article 7 and 27 of the Covenant. The Committee is concerned at the lack of specific information concerning indigenous peoples, especially the Degar (Montagnard), and about measures taken to ensure that their rights under article 27 to enjoy their cultural traditions, including their religion and language, as well as their agricultural activities, are respected”.

Madame (Mr.) Chairperson, distinguished members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Transnational Radical Party endorses those words and wishes to bring the conclusions of the Human Rights Committee July 2002 session to the attention of this august body, therefore urging the Commission to “take immediate measures to ensure that the rights of members of indigenous communities are respected.” And that Non-governmental organizations and other human rights monitors should be granted access to the central highlands” and to make public the Committee’s observations concerning the second periodic report by the Committee, the written answers it has provided in responding to the lists of issues drawn up by the Committee and, in particular, these concluding observations.”

The life, welfare and ancestral culture of hundreds of thousands of individuals is at stake, the international community cannot let them down.

Thank you