Montagnards jailed in Central Vietnam
Vietnam's state media says nine ethnic minority Christians have been jailed for between five and 12 years in Vietnam's troubled Central Highlands for anti-government activities.
The men, aged between 26 and 57 and from the Ede and Gia Rai hill tribes, were found guilty of fomenting disorder and undermining national unity by the People's Court of Dak Lak province.
The nine were arrested on April 10 this year while taking part in protests that took place in all four Central Highlands provinces against land confiscation and religious persecution.
They were accused of being members of the now defunct ethnic minority armed resistance organization FULRO, which fought alongside US troops during the Vietnam War.
Vietnam News Agency says since the February 2001 protests, the nine men had been acting on the orders of Kok Ksor, a founding member of FULRO, to set up an independent state in the region.
More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia after security forces put down demonstrations.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch says hundreds of people were wounded and at least 10 were killed. but the US-based Montagnard Foundation, an advocacy group run by Kok Ksor, says the actual death toll is far higher.
ABC Radio Australia News - August 14, 2004.
Vietnam denies Montagnards forced to take part in propaganda film
HANOI - Vietnam denied claims by a US-based advocacy group that it forced ethnic minority villagers to stage a reenactment of Easter anti-government protests so they could film acts of violence.
Citing sources in Vietnam's troubled Central Highlands, the Montagnard Foundation said residents of the Buon Tul village in Dak Lak province's Buon Don district were forced to take part in the documentary on July 7.
The South Carolina-based organization claimed that soldiers and police threatened to kill anyone who refused.
The government has used the film to show diplomats and foreign journalists that the minority people, who are known as Montagnards, acted violently during widespread protests in the region over the Easter weekend of April 10-11.
"The information from this so-called Montagnard Foundation is utterly preposterous and does not deserve comment," foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung said in comments published on the ministry's website.
He did not specifically address other allegations made by the organization of human rights abuses committed by security forces in the Central Highlands against the Christian Montagnards during June and July.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch says hundreds of people were wounded and at least 10 were killed in the impoverished region by security forces and civilians acting on their behalf.
The Montagnard Foundation says the actual death toll is far higher.
The government, however, insists only two people died and has blamed the protests on the foundation, which it says is instigating efforts to establish an independent state in the region.
Hanoi has vowed to severely punish anyone inciting further unrest.
Following the protests hundreds of Montagnards fled their homes fearing retribution. The United Nations (news - web sites) refugee agency has already moved 198 Montagnards to Phnom Penh from Cambodia's remote northeastern jungles.
On Tuesday Cambodian rights group Adhoc said that 42 others still remain in hiding.
The Vietnamese government has accused the UN agency of luring Montagnards to Cambodia with offers of political asylum.
The Easter clashes were the first large-scale demonstrations in the Central Highlands since February 2001, when security forces forcibly broke up protests by about 20,000 Montagnards, triggering a mass exodus into Cambodia.
Agence France Press - August 07, 2004.
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