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THE STATEMENT OF MFI AT THE 60TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGTS, GENEVA MARCH 30, 2004
Delivered by Mr. Kok Ksor
My name is Kok Ksor and I am honored to speak today on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party, also as a member of its General Council.
Even though Vietnam has ratified the ICESCR in 1982 it still pursues policies that go against the rights of its people. The International community is supporting Vietnam, but is not effectively ensuring the respect of human rights.
For the last 28 years, the government of Vietnam has forced the Montagnard people off their ancestral lands and condemned us to a life of poverty, as recognized also by UNICEF as regards our children.
For the last 3 years, the Vietnamese government has continuously carried out repressive paramilitary operations persecuting our people in our Central Highlands.
The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the Montagnard people have worsened as a consequence of the presence in the region of thousands of military officers, who have provoked a wave of persecutions, which includes summary executions, imprisonments, disappearances, coercive sterilizations, electric shock, torture and rape. The Vietnamese authorities even kill our people if they practice Christianity.
Our culture is based on a harmonious relationship with nature and its forces. For thousands of years, we have managed those lands according to traditions and customs, which have been completely swept away by the government of Vietnam. Since 1975, all the lands inhabited by the Montagnards in the Central Highlands have been expropriated by the government, with no recognition of our ownership rights nor of our traditional customs and social arrangements.
The persecution of the Montagnard refugees was also publicly condemned by UN Special Envoy to Cambodia Peter Leupretch last December.
Of urgent concern today is that the Vietnamese government continues to defy the 2002 Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee by - still refusing international human rights monitor access to the Central Highlands, as recently requested by the European Commission.
On behalf of the TRP and of hundreds of thousands of Montagnards inside Vietnam, I urge the UN to take emergency measures to stop the repression in the Central Highlands. It goes against our culture, traditions and economy, the very basis of human dignity.
The TRP invites the Commission to urge Vietnam to open the Central Highlands to missions of observers that can assess the situation in the region and establish a monitoring office to ensure the protection of our people.
Our people cannot wait much longer. Urgent action is needed to make Vietnam cease the persecution. The Montagnards inside the Central Highlands, today, know that the TRP is speaking about them at the Commission on Human Rights and await a word of hope.
I thank you Mr. Chairman.
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