by SCOTT JOHNSON

In an unprecedented move on May 8, 2002, the Vietnamese ambassador to the United Nations interrupted a speech at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and accused the speaker of being a "terrorist" and "an agent of the CIA." There were exclamations of bewilderment as international participants and government representatives from around the world strained to catch sight of this "terrorist" in the U.N.

Just who was this "terrorist" speaker? A suicide bomber? An al Qaeda fanatic? No, he was simply a lone hill tribesman who was calling for an end to the genocide of his people - the Montagnards or Degar peoples - of Vietnam's Central Highlands.

The so-called "terrorist" was appealing for the United Nations to protect Montagnard refugees fleeing Vietnam, who in the year 2002 were being beaten, tortured and sold by Cambodian authorities for bounties paid by Hanoi. He was appealing for Vietnam to end the military occupation of their homelands, the confiscation of their ancestral lands and the end to the torture of Montagnards with electric prods by the dreaded "Cong An" security forces. He was appealing for an end to the arrests of Montagnard Christians, the burning of their churches and the forcing of these indigenous people to renounce Christ. He was also appealing for an end to coercive sterilization policies that Montagnard woman are forced to endure.

This so-called "terrorist" notably happens to be both a Christian and an American citizen who bases his advocacy on Mahatma Ghandi's "passive resistance." This "Christian terrorist" is Mr. Kok Ksor, an ethnic Montagnard who now lives in the United States. As president of the Montagnard Foundation Inc., he stands accused by Hanoi of inciting unrest in Vietnam, when in February 2001, thousands of indigenous Montagnards, many of them Christians, peacefully demonstrated against the persecution they have suffered under communist rule. Human Rights Watch would find no evidence of violence being advocated by the Montagnard Foundation and yet Vietnam responded to these peaceful demonstrations with a brutal military crackdown.

Following the Vietnamese delegation's accusations at the U.N., Kok Ksor regained his composure and eventually the chairman of the commission permitted him to continue. But Kok Ksor, had spoken only a few words, when, like a puppet, the Cuban government again rudely interrupted him (at Vietnam's bequest) and called for his speech to be halted.

I witnessed this spectacle and was fortunately able to see Kok Ksor eventually finish his speech. Unfortunately, the wheels of repression by Vietnam were already turning and this despicable display of political bullying would develop into a calculated strategy - a wider plan to suppress human rights. It is not only a strategy to keep the genocidal treatment of the Montagnards hidden from the civilized world, it is a strategy to transform the Human Rights Commission into a farcical puppet show controlled by repressive regimes like Vietnam and Cuba.

On May 14, 2002, the Vietnamese ambassador to the U.N. in New York, Nguyen Thanh Chau formally requested that the United Nations take action and "revoke" the consultative status of the Transnational Radical Party that had sponsored Kok Ksor to speak at the Human Rights Commission. Vietnam would claim this indigenous Christian Montagnard is a "dangerous terrorist." It would become apparent however, that Vietnam's strategy is purely an attempt to "weed" from the U.N., those human-rights groups that try exposing it's repressive policies.

Thus the Transnational Radical Party (TRP), a democratic organization with consultative status to the United Nations and whose members include seven members of the European Parliament, must now defend itself from these insidious allegations and protect itself from being denied access to the United Nation's human- rights forum. Like a "terrorist" Vietnam is attempting to "hijack" the principals of the Human Rights Commission by dictating who may raise allegations of human rights violations. By forming a blockade with other nations, namely, Cuba, China, Russia, Algeria, Sudan, Pakistan (all regimes with dubious human rights records) Vietnam now is attempting to curtail free speech and the TRP's future human rights activities in the U.N.

If Vietnam succeeds in its plan, human-rights advocacy across the globe will suffer a severe blow and the worst violators of human rights may soon be dictating who comes before the United Nations. Essentially it will be akin to letting the "wolf guard the flock."

As to terrorism, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported hundreds of Montagnards being tortured throughout 2001-2002. In April 2002, Human Rights Watch published a 194-page report titled "Repression of Montagnards" documenting systematic persecution and abuses of these peoples. Last Christmas, Vietnamese security forces arrested and tortured Montagnard Christians and communist officials forced Montagnards to drink pig's blood and denounce Christ. While burning a church in Plei Lao, Vietnamese soldiers shot and killed the Montagnard Christian "R'mah Blin" on March 10, 2001. In the village of Plei Joning, three Montagnard Christians were actually crucified by the police in 2000. The list goes on and on …

The U.S. State Department, several European Parliament Resolutions and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have all recently condemned Vietnam's violations of human rights. The brutalities conducted by Hanoi's security agents over the last year subsequently led to some 900 Montagnard refugees being granted asylum in the United States.

Typical of the tactics once used by the North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War, the security forces persecute the relatives of whom they disapprove. On May 7, 2001, they dragged Kok Ksor's mother, an 80-year-old woman from her village longhouse and beat her. She suffered broken ribs and was hospitalized. In 2002, the persecution continues unabated as thousands of soldiers continue enforcing martial law throughout the central highlands while Vietnam's state controlled media publishes ludicrous propaganda with titles as "Central Highlanders Grateful to Uncle Ho."

The "real" terrorist, must not be allowed to get away with these atrocities, and human-rights organizations like the Transnational Radical Party must not be thwarted from pursuing human-rights advocacy for oppressed peoples like the Montagnards. I say now to Communist Party General Secretary Nung Duc Manh, you, of all people, a member of the Tay ethnic minority from the north of Vietnam, do you not feel the pain of your Montagnard cousins in the Central Highlands?

So far you have done nothing but betray them, and your government is but a wolf in sheep's clothing. With one hand you take millions of dollars of aid from the UNFPA, the UNDP, the European Union, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. You ask for trade with Europe and the United States. You ask for entry into the World Trade Organization. With the other hand however, you strangle the lifeblood from your indigenous people. You persecute Christians with a medieval tenacity, while one of the oldest races of indigenous peoples in Asia the Montagnards - are persecuted by your army.

Last year back in Vietnam, some villagers brought Kok Ksor's mother to a phone. I was there in the United States when he got the phone call. I saw the tears pour from his eyes when he spoke to her.

Mr. Ambassador and Mr. Secretary, I know who the real terrorist is.
 

SCOTT JOHNSON Mr. Johnson is a lawyer based in Perth, Australia, and Human Rights Advocate for the Montagnard Foundation in Spartanburg, S.C.  07/07/2002