KOK KSOR PLEADS FOR INTERNATIONAL HELP AS VIETNAM GOVERNMENT THREATENS HIS MOTHER AND RELATIVES - FORCING THEM TO DENOUNCE MFI ON VIETNAMESE TV. THE FIRST TIME THIS HAPPENDED, IN 2001, HIS MOTHER WAS BEATEN AND SUFFERED BROKEN RIBS

MFI comments on the Associated Press article published 2 June 2004 titled “Relatives of U.S.-based Montagnard exile forced to confess 'wrongdoings' in Vietnam.” The article stated Mr. Kok Ksor’s relatives “were required to participate in public "self-criticism" sessions in the communist country's restive Central Highlands region.”

President of the Montagnard Foundation Mr. Kok Ksor states:
“This is not the first time the Vietnamese authorities have committed such brutality against my innocent relatives. In May 2001 the security police first arrested my mother “Ksor H’Ble” who is over 80 years old. Because she refused to denounce MFI’s human rights activities the police beat her. She suffered broken ribs and was admitted to hospital. The security forces then threatened her over and over they were going to kill her. Recently this year in May 2004 the Vietnamese police also had my half-brother handcuffed, tied to a flag-pole and beaten publicly on May 10, in the Ceo Reo District.

I confirm that my mother, who also attended the Easter Demonstrations and got back home only after her son was publicly beaten, and my sister in law were forced by the Vietnamese Government to denounce me and to admit their “wrongdoings” publicly. MFI also received reports that their forced denunciations have been broadcasted by the Vietnamese Television.

I plead for the international community to urgently intervene on behalf of my mother, my family and for all the Montagnard Degar people inside Vietnam who suffer under Vietnam’s policies of repression. We are not terrorists as Vietnam claims but indigenous people who only want to live peacefully on our ancestral lands without the fear of being driven into poverty and persecuted for being Christian. I also plead to the international community to beware of Vietnam’s false claims that Montagnard Christians are terrorists. The UN cannot allow succeeding Hanoi’s underhanded plan to suspend the UN consultative status of human rights NGO’s (who support Montagnard human rights) such as the Transnational Radical Party. The UN must be kept free from intimidation tactics by repressive regimes like Vietnam.

We ask international Monitors be granted access into the Central Highlands as recommended by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and that Cambodia abides by the Refugee convention by ceasing the forced repatriation of our refugees back to Vietnam. The situation facing our people is extremely serious and the latest Human Rights Watch report of 28 May, 2004 called for an international investigation into the 2004 Easter killings of our people, stating:

“Fearing torture and arrest by Vietnamese troops, hundreds of Montagnards in the Central Highlands have resorted to hiding in village graves or pits dug in the forest, Human Rights Watch said today in a briefing paper. “

Unless urgent action is taken many more Montagnards will suffer and die.