Two prominent dissidents arrested in Vietnam
Vietnamese officials have arrested two prominent
dissidents over the weekend, Radio Free Asia has reported,
citing unnamed sources in Vietnam and the United States.
Pham Que Duong, a former army colonel and historian, was
arrested on Saturday local time at a train station in Ho Chi
Minh City, along with his wife and three others.
The five were enroute to Hanoi after visiting Professor Tran
Khue, who has been under house arrest for pro-democracy
efforts, the sources told Radio Free Asia on condition of
anonymity.
The sources say Professor Khue was arrested at his home
on Sunday local time, with authorities seizing his computer
along with two disks.
Another dissident, Nguyen Thanh Giang, called the arrests
a warning to Hanoi's critics, as Mr Duong and Professor
Khue have become defacto spokesmen for the dissident
movement within Vietnam.
Vietnamese officials were not immediately available for
comment.
ABC News, Radio Australia - December 30, 2002.
Vietnam jails 8 from hill tribes Group had tried to reach Cambodia
BANGKOK - Vietnam announced this week the latest
in a long string of prison terms as part of a
crackdown on the mostly Christian hill tribe
minorities known as Montagnards.
The longest sentence, 10 years, was given to Y
Thuon Nie, 30, a church leader and land-rights
advocate who led an attempt to flee into neighboring
Cambodia on Christmas a year ago. Seven other
men were given eight-year sentences.
A court in Daklak Province in the Central Highlands
found the men guilty of "organizing illegal migration to
Cambodia" and "undermining state and Communist
Party policy," according to the official Vietnam News
Agency.
The crackdown began in early 2001 after thousands
of Montagnards converged on provincial and district
government offices in some of the most widespread
protests in Vietnam in recent years.
They were protesting restrictions on their evangelical
Protestant churches and government-sponsored
encroachments on their land by migrants from the
lowlands.
Since then, human rights groups say, dozens of
people have been sentenced to prison terms of up to
12 years. They include church leaders, people
suspected of supporting a land-rights movement and,
as in the latest case, people who have tried to seek
asylum in Cambodia but have been forcibly returned
to Vietnam.
Since the crackdown began, hundreds of people have
fled into Cambodia's highlands. Many were housed
temporarily in refugee camps, but when those were
closed earlier this year 900 people were promised
asylum and were resettled in the United States.
Many Montagnards fought together with the United
States during the Vietnam War and are still
distrusted by the Communist government. The eight
men sentenced this week were accused of having
links with former members of a guerrilla group known
by its acronym, FULRO, who are now in the United
States.
Vietnam has accused an affiliated American
organization called the Montagnard Foundation of
helping to instigate the protests last year.
Since the closing of the refugee camps in March,
Cambodia has ceased offering even temporary
asylum to any new arrivals, and hundreds of people
have been deported.
"We have documentation that in April and May alone,
more than 400 Montagnards were deported after the
camps closed," said a spokesman for Human Rights
Watch.
San Francisco Chronicle - December 28, 2002.
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