by Vu Kim Chung
28-2-2002
The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, supervised the return of 15 men from Cambodia to their homes in Vietnam's Central Highlands. They were among about 1,000 people who had fled to Cambodia following protests in February 2001 in the highlands over access to land and religious freedom and who later were hounded by Vietnamese authorities. The Vietnamese authorities were anxious to have the people they called illegal migrants return to their highland families, saying they would be given food and other help to restart their lives. But human-rights groups and the United States criticised the returns, blaming the UNHCR for rushing. The deal collapsed over the February 23-24 weekend, prompting a halting to the repatriation process. The UNHCR said that Vietnam and Cambodia were undermining an agreed voluntary repatriation programme by imposing a deadline and called for urgent clarification. The UNHCR also expressed concern over Vietnam's refusal to allow its officials to visit villages before the refugees returned to them. The agency described a visit to the Cambodia camps by Vietnamese officials as "disturbing". The refugees, members of the Montagnard minority, fled Vietnam after they were persecuted.
About half of the region's population belong to ethnic minorities. Many of them are Protestants. Human rights groups reported that the Montagnard people were subject to systematic abuse, but local officials understandably denied this and pointed to a range of programmes to alleviate poverty [a relatively new development business buzzword coined by the Asian Development Bank] and preserve ethnic traditions in the area.
In 2001, eight people from the village of Bong Phun fled to Cambodia. One of them was the husband of Ploi and the father of their two children.
Fear
She speaks nervously at the door of her house, a tin shed with a concrete floor and chickens sleeping in a dark corner. She said the family is Protestant and had taken part in the 2001 demonstrations. She does not explain the protests, saying simply that she and her husband, Y Deh, followed the crowd. Afterwards, Y Deh fled the village several times, finally leaving in November 2001 after local officials put pressure on him.
Ploi said although the family did not have enough food, she did not want her husband to return, saying she was afraid for him and his life. Somebody who returned from Cambodia lives in the neighbouring village of Do. B Lun is aged in his early 20s, one of six children and a Protestant who goes regularly to church. But he says he had to practice his religion in fear. Protestants in this province have no authorised churches and worship in their homes, gatherings which may or may not be seen by the authorities as illegal.
Beaten
B Lun said he fled his village in 2001 for the Cambodian border because he did not have enough to eat. He spent a month in the jungle with his brothers until Vietnamese border guards caught them and returned them to their village. B Lun says he was beaten by the guards. Asked what the authorities did to him when he returned to his family, he said he was beaten again. He now lives with his family and was again attending weekly religious services, but said he continued to be afraid. Asked what he thinks might happen to people returning to Kon Tum, he says they can expect to be taken to meet local government authorities, at best given a stern warning and at worse beaten. He said they often are treated as if they were bad children.
UNHCR officials make second visit to Kon Tum
A group of officials from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) led by Javier de Reidmatten, deputy chief of the UNHCR Regional Representative Office for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, on February 20, made a visit to central highlands Kon Tum province. This was the second visit to Kon Tum by the UNHCR delegation with the first conducted on February13. The purpose of the visit was to monitor the progress of the returned refugees from Cambodia.
The UNHCR personnel returned to Rac hamlet of Ya Xia commune in Sa Thay district to meet with 15 ethnic minority people who had been repatriated in the first batch organised on February19. They also met with other people at Rac and Kleng hamlets who now wished to welcome back their husbands, children, and relatives who had fled to Cambodia.
The UNHCR delegation expressed its sincere thanks for the goodwill, close co-operation, and effective help given by the local authorities and people. They pledged to convey to these people the desire of their families to welcome them home. They also pledged to do all they could to arrange the repatriation of these people from Cambodia, helping them to reintegrate back into their families and communities in the near future.
Repatriation halted as deal breaks down
Vietnam blamed the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, for a delay in the repatriation of more than 1,000 hilltribe refugees now in Cambodia. A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the delay was "regrettable". She said Vietnam was ready to have more talks with the UNHCR and Cambodia, although she could not say when. She said that only 15 refugees had come back so far, although the UNHCR had a list of more than 100 who wanted to do so, and that Vietnam wanted them to return before the rainy season begins at the end of April.
The UNHCR said that Vietnam and Cambodia were undermining an agreed voluntary repatriation programme by imposing a deadline and has called for urgent clarification. The UNHCR also expressed concern over Vietnam's refusal to allow its officials to visit villages before the refugees return to them. The agency described a visit to the Cambodia camps by Vietnamese officials as "disturbing".
Viet Nam reiterated it was ready to work together with the UNHCR and Cambodia to eliminate unnecessary obstacles to the implementation of the January 21 tripartite agreement, affirmed Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh. Talking with the press in Ha Noi on February 25, the spokeswoman affirmed Viet Nam and Cambodia's determination to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to accomplish the repatriation of the refugees back to Viet Nam before the start of the 2002 rainy season.
She told Vietnamese and foreign correspondents that the UNHCR had temporarily postponed the repatriation of ethnic minority people in Viet Nam's Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands), who had fled to Cambodia last year. The UNHCR suspended the repatriation of the refugees and said that "Viet Nam and Cambodia had not respected the January 21, 2002 tripartite agreement as they agreed to accomplish the repatriation of ethnic illegal migrants to Viet Nam no later than the start of the 2002 rainy season."
"Viet Nam had sent governmental officials to visit those illegal migrants in Cambodia's camps," the UNHCR added.
Viet Nam's response to the UNHCR's claim is that the tripartite agreement set May 31, 2002 as the deadline for reviewing the January 21, 2002 tripartite agreement. Therefore, Viet Nam and Cambodia's determination to cooperate with the UNHCR to repartriate those illegal migrants to Viet Nam before the rainy season was an essential part of the tripartite agreement and stemmed from the reality that those people's makeshift lives could be more miserable in the rainy season. Worse, it is difficult to repatriate the migrants to their homeland in the rainy season, Thanh said.
She stressed that should the UNHCR follow its objective humanitarian spirit and coordinate with Viet Nam and Cambodia to complete the repatriation before the 2002 rainy season. It should not use this matter as a pretext for delaying the implementation of the tripartite agreement.
The Vietnamese delegation visited the migrants in Cambodia because they were Vietnamese citizens being made to return to their homeland as a result of quiet accommodations made between the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments. Therefore, the local authorities and families of those who had crossed the border to Cambodia were naturally responsible for their citizens and relatives. The Vietnamese delegation, comprising local authorities and family members, aimed to bring those migrants accurate and adequate information about their native land as well as the Vietnamese State's claimed clemency policies towards them.
"This is completely in line with the objectives and humanitarian spirit of the tripartite agreement," Thanh stresed.
She added that the visit, made in the presence of UNHCR officials, was completely transparent so that the UNHCR should have no reason for concern.
"It is surprising that the people in Cambodia's camps received no information about the content of the tripartite agreement. Worse still, the UNHCR has made no comment on the visit to the illegal migrants in Cambodian camps by diplomats of a country that was not directly involved in the agreement," the spokeswoman said, adding that the diplomats from this country made unconstructive remarks, that ran counter to the spirit of the agreement.
The spokeswoman reaffirmed that in order to accelerate the repatriation of migrants as desired by all parties a Viet Nam was ready to work with the UNHCR and Cambodia to overcome obstacles blocking implementation of the tripartite agreement.