KOK KSOR REFUTES THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT’S TERRORIST ALLEGATIONS AND PROPAGANDA AIMED AT SUBVERTING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED NATIONS

“No Violence, No demands for independence,
Only Human Rights and Indigenous Rights according to international law” Kok Ksor

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.
John 8:32

BACKGROUND: On April 10, 2004 tens of thousands of our people - Christian Montagnards - conducted peaceful demonstrations inside Vietnam’s Central Highlands calling for an end to years of persecution namely religious persecution and confiscation of our ancestral lands. Vietnamese paramilitary forces brutally attacked the demonstrators.

Human Rights Watch stated on May 28, 2004 “Hundreds of demonstrators were wounded and many were killed on April 10 and 11 on key bridges and roadways leading into Buon Ma Thuot, the provincial capital of Dak Lak, and in commune centers in Gia Lai and Lam Dong provinces.
Vietnamese government forces, and civilians acting on their behalf, beat and killed dozens of Montagnards during the demonstrations. Thousands of people had gathered to protest confiscation of ancestral lands and religious repression, according to numerous interviews with inhabitants of the Central Highlands.”

Recently in the diplomatic arena the Vietnamese government has tried to cover up the Easter Massacre and formally declared (in the United Nations) that my organization - the Montagnard Foundation - and I is a terrorist organization. In their official propaganda arm (government controlled newspapers) they have called me “a desperate terrorist attempting to set up a separatist Degar State in the Central Highlands”. Further, the Vietnamese Government is trying to subvert the democratic principles of the United Nations by intimidation and threats. They have formally declared to the UN that the NGO with Consultative Status to the United Nations (of whom I am a member of the General Council) – the Transnational Radical Party – be sanctioned and suspended from the United Nations forums. In the third week of July, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations will decide whether or not I (a committed Christian) am a terrorist and whether or not the Transnational Radical Party (a NGO with consultative status to the UN that follows the non-violence principles of Gandhi) will be permitted to speak freely for oppressed peoples in the United Nations. Vietnam cannot be allowed to hoodwink the United Nations in this fashion. These intimidation tactics are a political stunt to prevent word of Hanoi’s brutal human rights abuses from reaching the ears of the international community.

Our Easter demonstrations were carried out without any violence intended on our part and that’s why we conducted the demonstrations in public and we notified the world beforehand.

The Vietnamese communist government presents defamatory opinions as fact, and use underhanded tactics to discredit any organization that dares to object to their misdeeds. It is also trying to link our organization with other groups that have been using violence. I thus advise the international community to carefully examine any and all information that the government of Vietnam puts forth.

I say here clearly and with utter sincerity before my God that our organization and I did not use nor intend to use violence and that we are not in any way connected to any organization that uses violence.

The Easter demonstrations were in fact based on Christianity and Gandhi’s principles of non-violence. Some of the demonstrators, after brutally attacked by the Vietnamese military and police forces armed with crude weapons such as clubs and metal bars, acted in self-defense, as stated clearly by Human Rights Watch on May 28, 2004.

Montagnards living inside Vietnam organized the demonstrations and the Montagnard Foundation offered its support. It is the right of all the Vietnamese people to demonstrate peacefully according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by Vietnam.

Our people are crying out for help. Our most immediate concern for our people is that international must be allowed into the Central highlands to monitor the ongoing human rights abuses as recommended by the 2002 Human Rights Commission (UN doc: CCPR/C/SR.2031), and it has been strongly reaffirmed lately by US Senators and Congressmen, the European Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international.

I also refute the Vietnamese claims we are seeking independence. We only want our human rights and indigenous rights respected according to international law. We also have no word for “independence” in our language but we do have a word for “freedom”. It is this word “freedom”, which the government of Vietnam falsely claims that we are seeking independence.

We also sympathize with the oppressed Vietnamese Buddhists and other repressed groups in Vietnam and we declare we bare no animosity towards the Vietnamese people.

As a Christian I pray not only for our brothers and sisters inside Vietnam who struggle for freedom but also I pray for the Vietnamese communist authorities that persecute us.

I cannot stress the urgency of how our people inside Vietnam cry for help and also what a terrible injustice will be done if Vietnam is permitted to dictate to the United Nations who can and who cannot be allowed to speak in the United Nations. I am not a terrorist and the Transnational Radical Party must be allowed to support myself and other repressed peoples in the United Nations.

Kok Ksor
Montagnard Foundation