Rights group: Hundreds of Montagnards hiding from Vietnamese troops in Central Highlands

The Associated Press
Friday May 28th, 2004, 5:55 AM

 

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnamese security forces have driven ethnic minority villagers into hiding in the Central Highlands in a government crackdown following mass protests over land rights and religious freedom, a human rights group said Friday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that desperate ethnic minority villagers, known as Montagnards, have resorted to hiding in village graves or pits in the forest to escape arrest by Vietnamese troops.

Montagnards in the area are unable to freely leave their homes and authorities have threatened violent reprisals if residents try to relay news to the outside, Sam Zarifi, deputy director for the group's Asia division, said in the statement.

An estimated 10,000 Montagnards, who are mainly Protestant, participated in the April 10-11 rallies to demand religious freedoms and the return of ancestral lands. The demonstrations in the provinces of Daklak, Gia Lai, and Daknong ended in violent clashes with Vietnamese troops and police.

Human Rights Watch said hundreds of villagers were wounded and many killed, according to multiple eyewitness accounts. Earlier reports said at least 10 were killed during the protests, while the government has said only two people died.

Hanoi has repeatedly blamed a U.S.-based group, the Montagnard Foundation, for organizing the unrest. The group, whose founding member was part of a guerrilla force allied with America during the Vietnam War against Communist North Vietnam, has said it simply advocates on behalf of repressed ethnic minorities.

Following an international outcry over the protests, Vietnam has permitted small groups of diplomats, journalists and aid workers to tour the area on very tightly monitored trips. No independent access has been allowed.

The seven-page report notes that truckloads of soldiers have been sent to Gia Lai and Daklak to search rural villages, farms and jungles for Montagnards involved in the protests.

"In one area, people have resorted to hiding in graves by day. Others are hiding in pits dug in the forest," the report said. Montagnard graves can be 6 1/2 feet deep, with family coffins stacked in one grave.

The group also alleges that at least seven ethnic Jarai church leaders from Gia Lai have been arrested.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern over Cambodia's recent statement that any Montagnard refugees found inside its borders would be considered illegal immigrants and would be deported, despite the United Nations' contention that they are political refugees.

The group called for the Cambodian government to authorize the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to provide protection and assistance for refugees from Vietnam and urged it to reopen refugee camps in Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces, adjacent to the Central Highlands.

On Friday, a U.N. representative in Cambodia also expressed alarm over the reported deportation of Montagnard asylum seekers, saying they would constitute serious breaches of Cambodia's international obligations.

"It is worrying" that Cambodia would deport Montagnards "without providing an asylum process within Cambodia or allowing the (UNHCR) the opportunity to assess claims," said Peter Leuprecht, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Human Rights in Cambodia, in a released statement.