United States grants asylum to 22 Vietnamese refugees in Cambodia, U.N. worker says
The United States has granted asylum to 22 Vietnamese who fled to Cambodia after a government crackdown, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
The hilltribe people, collectively known as Montagnards, were scheduled to leave Cambodia Wednesday night, said Cathy Shin, a protection officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Many will go to the state of North Carolina.
An official at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh declined to comment.
Many Montagnards fled Vietnam's Central Highlands for neighboring Cambodia following mass demonstrations in April against religious repression and land confiscation during which security forces clashed with protesters.
Human rights groups say at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded in the violence. Authorities maintain two died.
The Vietnamese refugees granted asylum by the United States arrived independently at U.N. offices in the capital, Phnom Penh, where they had been for several months.
They were not among a group of more than 200 Montagnards rescued recently by U.N. and Cambodian authorities in northeastern Ratannakiri province.
Cambodia's government described the Montagnards earlier this year as economic migrants and reportedly have deported more than 100 of them.
But following criticism from human rights groups, Prime Minister Hun Sen said last month he would let the UNHCR reopen its offices in two border provinces to Montagnards seeking asylum.
Many Montagnards were U.S. allies against the communists during the Vietnam War and a number were resettled in the United States after the war ended in 1975.
More than 1,000 Montagnards, mainly members of the Protestant Christian denominations distrusted by Vietnam, fled the highlands in 2001 following a massive crackdown on their protests over the same issues.
The Associated Press - August 18, 2004.
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