HUNDREDS OF MONTAGNARD
REFUGEES IN CAMBODIA FACE URGENT DANGER OF FORCED DEPORTATION:
VIETNAM CONTINUES TO UNJUSTLY IMPRISON INDIGENOUS MONTAGNARDS
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BACKGROUND:
Hundreds of Montagnards have fled to Cambodia to escape ongoing persecution
inside Vietnam as result of decades of persecution by the Vietnamese government.
On April 10, 2004 tens of thousands of Christian Montagnards conducted a peaceful
prayer vigil inside Vietnam’s Central Highlands calling for an end to
this ongoing persecution. Vietnamese security forces however, brutally attacked
the demonstrators and Human Rights Watch reported on 28 May 2004, “Hundreds
of demonstrators were wounded and many were killed on April 10 and 11 on key
bridges and roadways”.
URGENT: The Montagnard Foundation
has received information that hundreds of Montagnard asylum seekers face deportation
by Cambodian authorities. It is reported that Cambodian police are currently
planning to forcibly hand some 330 refugees over to Vietnamese police at the
Vietnamese border. The refugee centres holding the refugees in Phnom Penh have
recently been coming under increasing pressure by Cambodian authorities who
are in turn pressured by the government of Vietnam to forcibly return these
fleeing asylum seekers. The US State Department is reportedly involved and European
Parliament MPs Hon. Emma Bonnino and Hon. Marco Pannella have written open letters
to the UNHCR voicing their concerns. The Montagnard Foundation President Kok
Ksor states; “if our people are returned to Vietnam they will most
certainly be severely persecuted by the Vietnamese government as we receive
regular reports of torture, long prison terms and even executions of our people
inside Vietnam”.
On 30 December 2004 the Vietnamese newspaper
Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) reported seven Montagnards being arrested
and imprisoned in the highland province of Gia Lai. The Montagnard Foundation
also received this information and states these people were falsely accused
of trying to organize Christmas demonstrations. Kok Ksor states, “No
Christmas demonstrations were planned this year and that these people were merely
Christians who the government despises because they refuse to renounce Christian
beliefs”. Australian based advisor to the Montagnard Foundation Scott
Johnson states, “the UNHCR, international donors, including the US and
Australian governments need to clearly take a stand on what is happening to
these refugees in Phnom Penh and Vietnam, and it would be a terrible injustice
if these asylum seekers are forcibly deported”
The Montagnard Foundation calls on:
- The UNHCR and donor nations to urgently protect the Montagnard
Refugees in Cambodia and ensure they are not forcibly deported against their
will to Vietnam, and that Vietnam and Cambodia abide by the UN Refugee Convention.
- The international community urge Vietnam to abide by the
2002 Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee regarding
the “serious violations” facing the Montagnard peoples (UN doc:
CCPR/C/SR.2031) and that Vietnam allow human rights monitors access to the
central highlands.
