PERMANENT
FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES
– NYC, 10 – 21 MAY 2004
STATEMENT ON CULTURE
BY KOK KSOR, PRESIDENT OF THE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION
My name
is Kok Ksor and I represent the Montagnard Foundation. My statement today address
culture-related issues concerning the indigenous Degar hill tribes that live
in Vietnam's Central Highlands and that are known with the French name "Montagnards".
The Degar
people is one of the oldest indigenous groups in South East Asia, that over
the last half century, before during and after the Indo-Chinese wars, has suffered
all sorts of discriminations and violent repressions that have killed over a
couple of million peoples. Moreover, for three decades we have been at the center
of a campaign carried out by the Vietnamese government that is trying to annul
our cultural roots, which is forcing the Degar people off their ancestral lands,
condemning us to a life of poverty.
One of
our basic grievances is that our culture, our way of life connected with our
ancestral lands is being destroyed and eroded. Like all indigenous groups we
have a special relationship with mother earth, a relationship that is being
destroyed by ideology and national politics with the silence of the international
community.
The government
of Vietnam has actually prohibited us from practicing our 'centuries old' slash
and burn agriculture farming which is a defining element of our society and
our connection to the land.
All adult
members of the Montagnard community take part in the traditional methods of
planting and harvesting our crops around the outskirts of the villages.
Vietnam
has sought to destroy our culture by forcibly relocating us from our ancestral
villages and compelling us to farm permanent fields in a Vietnamese style in
new locations.
Our ancestral
lands have today been turned into coffee, rubber and pepper plantations run
by the government, all crops that are foreign to our culture and tradition.
Not only
should this be considered a sort of cultural destruction, but our people are
forced to live on inferior croplands where are people suffer poverty and malnutrition.
UNICEF's
report on Vietnam recognized in 2001 that "Children belonging to ethnic minority
groups are extremely vulnerable and suffer from poverty" Vietnam's cultural
destructive policies are in violation of international law, namely Article 27
of the International Covenant on Civil and Cultural Rights and the general principals
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Further
the violations breach Article 15, 1 (a) of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which clearly defines the right to "To
take part in cultural life".
Let me
also draw the attention of the permanent forum to "General Comment 23" of the
Human Rights Committee on Article 27, where the Committee states that "those
(cultural) rights may require positive legal measures of protection and measures
to ensure the effective participation of members of minority communities in
decisions which affect them".
In 2002,
Vietnam's Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made a public statement
indicating the government's intent to fully eliminate our peoples traditional
agriculture methods.
Religious
belief has always been an important part of our culture. In the past it was
a sort of animism, today is Christianity. In fact, over the last fifty years,
our people decided to convert to various denominations of Christianity. This
free choice has become another reason for repression and discrimination.
The persecution
against the Degar people reached a climax this Easter, when on April 10, 2004
tens of thousands of indigenous Montagnards conducted peaceful demonstrations
inside Vietnam's Central Highlands calling for an end to years of religious
persecution and confiscation of ancestral lands.
Vietnamese
military and paramilitary forces brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrations.
On 22 April
2004, Human Rights Watch stated that "Vietnamese security forces appear to have
coordinated with armed men in civilian clothing to savagely attack Montagnard
protesters at more than a dozen mass demonstrations during Easter weekend".
Human Rights
Watch further stated, "We've received alarming reports that scores of protesters
were wounded during the demonstrations, and that some protesters were beaten
to death." The demonstrations where also reported by international media outlets,
which at time mischaracterized the events alleging the use of violence by the
Montagnards.
Human Rights
Watch states it had, "received firsthand reports that security forces and men
in civilian clothing, armed with metal bars, shovels, clubs with nails attached
to them, machetes, and chains, confronted Montagnard protesters at more than
a dozen locations leading into Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak province,
on the morning of April 10. According to witnesses, the demonstrators were not
armed, although some defended themselves when attacked by throwing stones at
the police.
" Human
Rights Watch confirmed 10 killed and Amnesty International confirmed 8 killed.
I however,
have recently received information direct from my people that 276 of our people
were killed and the Montagnard Foundation intends to make the list public for
the international community to investigate.
For the
last 3 years, the Vietnamese government has maintained this type of repressive
paramilitary operations and persecution against our peoples. Persecution that
includes summary executions, imprisonments, disappearances, coercive sterilizations
of our woman, electric shock torture, rape and religious persecution.
It is noted
that our culture, our right to live as indigenous people is directly related
to these human rights violations.
In May
2003 the US International Commission for Religious Freedom stated, "the increased
repression of religious freedom has been reportedly sanctioned at the highest
levels of the Vietnamese government.
" Our people
who manage to flee this persecution to Cambodian refugee camps are hunted down
and sold for bounties - a policy that was publicly condemned by UN Special Envoy
Peter Leupretch.
The US
State Department reported in 2004 that, ""Ethnic minority, unregistered Protestant
congregations in the Central Highlands and in the northwest provinces continued
to suffer severe abuses"
These human
rights violations are the result of cultural destruction enforced by a uncaring
government. I take special note of the July 2002 where the UN Human Rights Committee,
in its 75th session, stigmatized the repressive policy of the Vietnamese Government
towards the Montagnard people, stating that it was: "concerned at the lack of
specific information concerning indigenous peoples, especially the Degar (Montagnard),
and about measures taken to ensure that their rights under article 27 to enjoy
their cultural traditions, including their religion and language, as well as
their agricultural activities, are respected. The State party should take immediate
measures to ensure that the rights of members of indigenous communities are
respected. Non-governmental organizations and other human rights monitors should
be granted access to the central highlands".
In an attempt
to silence our cry for human rights the Vietnamese government without any evidence
has even declared to the United Nations that I am a terrorist whilst I was speaking
at the 2002 Human Rights Commission under the item of Indigenous issues.
It is imperative
that human rights monitors are granted access to the central highlands as recommended
by the 75th session of the Human Rights Committee.
It is imperative
that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special
Rapporteurs and the UNHCR are permitted to operate freely in Cambodia and Vietnam,
and that both Cambodia and Vietnam abide by the Refugee Convention.
These actions
are needed to end the cultural destruction and violation of fundamental rights
suffered by the Montagnard people over the last 30 years.
Thank you
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