by Vu Kim Chung
30-3-2001
The Vietnamese authorities said the leaders of ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands region had organised patrols to block access to the area. The report in the state newspaper the trade union daily Lao Dong was the latest of a series of official admissions about the continuing serious anti-government protest and sentiments in the central highlands of Vietnam. Authorities tore down a Protestant church amid the continuing ethnic unrest and sent more troops to the area.
It acknowledged that the protests were of greater scale than it had earlier said and also recognised a religious dimension to the unrest. The mainly Christian ethnic minority in the region have been complaining about the seizure of their land and religious repression. In a separate report, state media said that a senior official in charge of ethnic minorities and mountainous areas Hoang Duc Nghi had been disciplined for corruption and misuse of funds.
Hanoi claims separatist plot foiled
Authorities uncovered a rebellion plot in a third province of the Central Highlands, adding to evidence that the February 2001 ethnic unrest was wider and more serious than Hanoi has previously conceded. Security forces in Kon Tum province "demolished a number of secret underground units" after interrogating 40 people who confessed to "wrongdoings", the Lao Dong newspaper said on March 26.
"From these confessions the extent of the enemy's... conspiracy is uncovered," it said. "Many conspirators have been detained and documents in English, French, Vietnamese and the local dialect containing instructions... to establish the so-called Degar government were seized." The newspaper identified A. Bram and Jean Dat, both of Kon Tum town, as the respective governor and deputy governor of a proposed autonomous zone straddling the Dac Bla River, which forms part of the border between Kon Tum and Gia Lai province. The fate of both men and two others identified as officials in the proposed Degar government remained unclear, but Hanoi had previously said an ethnic minority rebellion in late January and early February was confined largely to Gia Lai and Dac Lac provinces.
The Vietnamese Government played down the unrest as the result of minor land disputes involving minorities who were allied to the US during the Vietnam War and Kinh majority immigrants who flooded the region after the 1975 communist victory. Northwestern minorities protested over land issues in Hanoi in the middle of March, and Phnom Penh announced on March 26 that two groups of minority men arrested earlier in March in the Cambodian province of Mondulkiri would be deported to Vietnam.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose Cambodian People's Party has close links to Hanoi, said his Government wanted nothing to do with "rebels or criminals in the region".
"There is no choice for the Cambodian Government. When foreigners enter Cambodia illegally, they must be sent back to their country," he said. Human rights group Amnesty International urged Phnom Penh on March 24 to grant political asylum to 24 men who had earlier crossed the Cambodian border from Dac Lac. Vietnamese Communist Party ideology chief Huu Tho said on the same day that Defence Minister Pham Van Tra, army Chief of Staff Le Van Dung, and the head of the Committee for Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Regions, Hoang Duc Nghi, had been censured by the Central Committee for "shortcomings in management". But Mr Tho declined to link the reprimands specifically to the ethnic unrest, which was building into a major diplomatic issue ahead of the expected ratification by the US Congress of a trade deal with Hanoi.
Vice-Foreign Minister Nguyen Dinh Binh urged Washington to curtail the activities of a group of US-based ethnic minority emigres who have accused Hanoi of land-grabbing, illegal detentions and human rights abuses.
The authorities preparing to further punish Catholic priest, Father Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who dared speak out to Washington about violations of religious freedom. A house arrest order earlier this month had failed to silence him, said the Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) daily. He should be "punished severely by the courts" for his defiance, it said.
Vietnamese flee persecution: Cambodian governor
Twenty-four Vietnamese tribespeople in Cambodian custody fled a government crackdown along with about 1,100 others who also sneaked into Cambodia, officials said on March 27. The detainees told Mondulkiri provincial officials that they were forced to flee after they and 1,100 other tribespeople took part in "nonviolent, anti-Hanoi government demonstrations," provincial governor Tor Soeuth said. They said most of them left their homes because "they could not live normally anymore," Mr Tor Soeuth told reporters in Phnom Penh where the detainees have been brought. "They said they fled to Cambodia for their safety."
The 24 Vietnamese, who were caught earlier in March in the remote province of Mondulkiri, came from the neighbouring Central Highlands of Vietnam where security forces crushed a rare popular unrest by the largely Christian tribespeople in February. The Christian minorities were protesting against government restrictions on the practice of their Protestant religion and about long-standing land grievances. Communist Vietnam harbours a deep distrusts of the Christians who had fought alongside American forces during the Vietnam War. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said on March 27 these people were fleeing a crackdown in the Central Highlands, and urged Cambodia not to send them back.
The UNHCR office in Phnom Penh made a request on March 26 to interview the detainees but had not been granted access yet, John Farvolden, the acting director of the mission, said the following day.
"We would like access very soon, before any action is decided," Mr Farvolden said. "We have no idea who these people are."
Sok Phal, a senior Interior Ministry intelligence official, also said the detained people spoke of taking part in the demonstration with about 1,100 others and that they fled their homes.
"We don't know how many were arrested in Vietnam or how many sneaked into Cambodia illegally," General Sok Phal said. Mr Tor Soeuth said it will be difficult to find the others.
"There are many places they could be but I do not know where they are now," Mr Tor Soeuth said.
Fury at Vietnam church destruction
Authorities tore down a Protestant church amid the continuing ethnic unrest. A clash broke out on March 10 when police dismantled a wooden prayer house near Pleiku, the capital of Gia Lai province. This revealed the scale of ethnic tensions was far greater than previously thought. Three men and other "stubborn elements" were arrested for trying to stop police, a local police official said. Some members of the Jarai tribe were wounded in the clash.
Human rights groups criticised Vietnam for religious repression, citing the crackdown on Protestant "house churches" which have attracted many followers from ethnic hilltribes. The recent protests have been fuelled by anger over religious rights as well as the government turning ancestral forests into the country's largest coffee-growing region.
Foreign concern
The communist authorities acknowledged that "hundreds" of young people had set up a no-go zone in the central highlands in protests dating back to October 2000 - months earlier than previously admitted. The army was since sent in, the region closed and a number of arrests made, including, according to some reports, some pastors and church elders.
Vietnam reacted defiantly in the face of growing foreign concern over a crackdown following the protests. On March 27, it rejected calls by the US for diplomats to be granted access to the area, saying local authorities were too busy. It also attacked calls for two dozen hilltribe fugitive members to be granted asylum in neighbouring Cambodia.
Crackdown
The foreign ministry described concern for the refugees by human rights organisation Amnesty International as "absolutely unacceptable". Amnesty said the refugees would face persecution if forcibly returned.
The government warned of a renewed crackdown on protests.
"If anyone goes to complain at an official's house... with a petition or complaint that has been resolved reasonably and in accordance with the law... they will be prosecuted," a new decree stated. Anyone who has bad words about state or party cadres... which cause social disturbances or public disorder... will be prosecuted."
Vietnam sends troops to highlands
Vietnam's army sent hundreds of soldiers to live with the minority people in the two central highland provinces hit by the ethnic unrest. It rattled authorities intolerant of open shows of dissent. Five hundred soldiers and officers were subsequently settled in nine districts of the Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces. The troops were tasked with spreading Communist Party propaganda, working with local people on infrastructure projects and providing health care services, according to People's Army Daily, an official paper.
"The good deeds by the teams have contributed to stabilizing political security and social order as well as improving living standards of the people," the paper said. Vietnamese media has blamed a U.S.-based emigre group, the Montagnard Foundation, based in South Carolina, for organizing the protests.
State-run Vietnam Television showed brief footage of the protests for the first time. Shown were masked demonstrators using slingshots and fighting with police in Pleiku, capital of Gia Lai, and hundreds gathered in neighboring Daklak province. The Lao Dong paper said men had forced local people to make contributions to build a chapel which they used for themselves. Many who took part in the protests were Protestants and church sources estimated that as many as 60 pastors and church elders were detained in the highlands because of the unrest. Church sources say that while many who took part were minority protestants, the protests were triggered by ethnic rights issues, including land, rather than religion.