“REMEMBER THE MONTAGNARDS” CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN BY US FORMER ALLIES TO MAKE HUMAN RIGHTS “A MUST” FOR THEIR PEOPLE

Over the next few months the Montagnard Foundation on behalf of the Montagnard Degar People inside Vietnam's Central Highlands will carry out a number of human rights activities to ensure their people's sacrifice during the Vietnam War is remembered. These human rights actions will be conducted in the spirit of non violence based on democratic principals universally accepted by peace loving governments. The Montagnard Foundation will appeal specifically to members of the US Congress and US Government to make human rights “a must” (an issue of priority) for the US and Vietnamese governments in relation to trade, military, and diplomatic negotiations between the governments of the United States and Vietnam. In the coming weeks the United States Congress will vote on Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Vietnam . The Montagnard Foundation wishes to stress we are not asking the United States to abandon relations with Vietnam and we do not want progress between US and Vietnam to be stifled. However, we ask that our people's sacrifice during the Vietnam War be remembered and cry out in desperation now to ensure that human rights for our people become a real and concrete part of this growing relationship between the United States and Vietnam.

 

During the Vietnam War the indigenous Montagnard Degar Peoples were loyal allies to the United States and it is estimated that at any one time over 40,000 Montagnards served with their American brothers during that conflict. By the end of the war over a quarter of the Montagnard population, over 200,000 people had died from the effects of the war. Upon taking over South Vietnam in 1975 the Hanoi government commenced another phase of persecution against the Montagnards in the name of revenge that involved a decades long policy of land confiscation, Christian religious repression, torture, killings and imprisonment. In August 2006 the US State Department has continued to maintain Vietnam on the “watch list” of countries that are the worst violators of religious freedom and Montagnard Degar Christians have long suffered severe persecution for their faith. To date over 350 Degar prisoners remain in Vietnamese prisons for unjust charges involving merely standing up for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia while the entire Montagnard population faces repression by paramilitary and military forces who commit regular human rights violations against them.  

The Montagnard Foundation continues to receive reports in August 2006 direct from Vietnam of arrests, torture and even deaths of Montagnard Degar people by Vietnamese security forces. A recent report by Human Rights Watch “No Sanctuary: Ongoing Threats to Indigenous Montagnards in Vietnam's Central Highlands” Volume 18, Number 3 (C) of June 14, 2006 reported that the Montagnard population faces ongoing religious and political persecution and that recent returnees from Cambodia have been detained and tortured. This report also documents over 350 Montagnard Degar Prisoners, See website: http://hrw.org/reports/2006/vietnam0606/ . It is noted that as of August 2006 the US State Department has continued to maintain Vietnam on the “countries of particular concern” watch list (CPC watch list) a status reserved for countries who are the most egregious violators of religious freedom. Violence, intimidation and repression by Vietnamese authorities against the Montagnard Degar people has increased since Easter April 2004 when tens of thousands of Montagnard Degar people, including women and children, commenced peaceful prayer services in public concerning ongoing religious persecution, human rights abuses and lands rights in the Central Highlands. Vietnamese security forces however, responded with brutal force to break up the demonstrations and the US State Department's Human Rights Report on Vietnam, released February 2005 commented on the casualty figures: “Credible estimates put the number of protestors killed by police at least in double digits; some international organizations report that the figures may be much higher (see Section 2.b.).”

The ancestral territories inhabited by the Montagnards are regularly confiscated by the Vietnamese government to make room for immigrants coming from other regions of Vietnam . These government policies of land confiscation has condemned the indigenous Montagnards to a life of poverty while violating their rights to practice traditional culture and farming methods, without providing any feasible alternatives. Ethnic minority children suffer the worst rates of malnutrition and poverty in Vietnam and official and societal discrimination against the Montagnards is widespread. In April 2002 Human Rights Watch produced a comprehensive 194-page book/report tilted “Repression of Montagnards” of which the opening press release stated: The Montagnards have been repressed by Vietnam for decades. This has got to stop.”  

The Montagnard Foundation notes however, that in 2006 much of the Montagnard population is subject to strict military and police harassment where Montagnard villages are subject to human rights abuses where many individuals have even disappeared after arrest. This persecution also resulted in thousands of refugees attempting to flee to Cambodia were they have been hunted down and many forcibly returned to Vietnam . Many of these human rights violations have been independently confirmed by the international media, US State Department, and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The Montagnard Foundation concludes that the last 30 years of persecution and the recent escalation of repression by the communist government of Vietnam is resulting in the cultural and physical destruction of one of the oldest indigenous races of peoples in Asia.