Vietnam jails four over Cambodia border crossings
HANOI - A court in
Vietnam's central highlands has jailed
four men of an ethnic minority for terms of up to
six-and-a-half-years for organising illegal crossings into
Cambodia, a court official said on Monday.
Against the backdrop of criticism from rights groups over a
recent pact for the return home of Vietnamese refugees in
Cambodia, the case seems unlikely to spur faith that Hanoi will
stick to pledges not to punish those who return.
The official of the court in the province of Gia Lai told Reuters the sentences were handed
down in two separate trials last Friday.
"They were found guilty of having organised for more than 80 local people to cross the
border to Cambodia," he said, adding that those who went to Cambodia were from the
Gia Rai tribe.
He named those sentenced in one of the trials as Siu Beng, who received six years, six
months and the other as Siu Be, who received three years, six months. In the other trial,
Hnoch and Kpa Hling were both sentenced to five years and six months.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticised what they called a lack of
safeguards in last week's agreement by Vietnam, Cambodia and the U.N. refugee agency
for the repatriation of around 1,000 tribespeople who fled last year to Cambodia to escape
a crackdown in Vietnam's Central Highlands.
The United States has also expressed similar concerns.
Last September, courts in the Central Highlands jailed 14 minority people, including seven
in Gia Lai province, accused of organising the protests. Sentences ranged from six to 12
years.
New York-based Human Rights Watch says at least another 10 Montagnards were
sentenced in October.
The official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said the four convicted had ties to a
"reactionary movement headed by Ksor Kok", a U.S.-based exile Hanoi blames for
inciting last year's unrest.
VNA said the tribespeople who crossed the border had "believed in words of bad
elements that they will get a better life in the United States."
Hanoi was incensed last year when 38 of those who crossed the border were allowed to
resettle in the United States.
The VNA report said Siu Beng and Siu Be were arrested in April 2001 in Cambodia with
a group of 32 people who crossed the border while the rest were arrested in May 2001
with 51 people.
Last Thursday, a spokeswoman for Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said there was no reason
for concern about the safety of returnees, although she repeatedly stressed Hanoi's line that
the people had left "illegally".
Reuters - January 28, 2002.
|