US to Vietnam : you have no say on refugees
The United States warned Vietnam it had no say in the fate of 1,000 hill tribe refugees who fled a military crackdown for remote camps in Cambodia before being offered asylum by Washington.
US officials offered a new home to the refugees earlier Tuesday after the United Nations pulled out of a repatriation accord with Vietnam and Cambodia, accusing both sides of violating its terms.
"They (Vietnam) don't have a right of approval of any of these people," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
"These people are out of Vietnam and being considered by the international community for resettlement."
"The actions of Vietnamese were the cause of some of the heightened concerns that we have at this point."
Boucher urged Cambodia, who faces a delicate political situation with its Southeast Asian neighbor over the issue, to respond to the offer as quickly as possible.
Vietnam has demanded the repatriation of all the refugees, who are known as Montagnards and have fled the country over the last 12 months.
Hanoi was outraged last year when the United States resettled 38 asylum seekers who had crossed into Cambodia claiming they had been persecuted.
Boucher said the United States would support voluntary repatriation of the refugees only if was based on credible, meaningful, and ongoing inspections of their situation once back in Vietnam.
"Voluntary repatriation on these terms is not now available and we urge the Cambodian government to facilitate resettlement for those who seek it," he said.
Relations between former wartime foes the United States and Vietnam have soured considerably in recent months, largely over human rights, after peaking during a reconciliation drive which culminated during the Clinton presidency.
Last week, the United States issued a strongly worded statement accusing 400 Vietnamese of crossing the border and travelling to a refugee camp in Cambodia's northeast Mondulkiri province, and threatening and manhandling refugees and UN staff there.
Vietnam said Tuesday it had not yet been informed of Washington's offer, but foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh reiterated Hanoi's long-established position that the minority people had crossed into Cambodia illegally.
"The members of ethnic minorities crossed the frontier illegally due to incitement by certain parties," she said.
"There is no discrimination, no legal process and no sanctions towards them when they return to Vietnam, and there is no reason to consider them refugees," she added.
Agence France Presse - March 27, 2002
Vietnam says hill tribe people do not need asylum
HANOI - Vietnam said on Tuesday it was unaware of a U.S. offer of asylum to some 1,000 ethnic minority people who fled to Cambodia, adding there was no reason to consider them refugees.
"We have no information as to U.S. intentions," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in response to earlier statements by U.S. and U.N. officials in Phnom Penh.
But she added: "Talk about any oppression is just groundless imagination."
Thanh said the hill people, or Montagnards, had been "cheated or incited" to leave Vietnam's Central Highlands and reiterated Hanoi's pledge that they would not be punished or discriminated against if they returned.
"There is no reason to consider these people as refugees," she said, adding that Hanoi considered them "illegal border crossers".
Kent Wiedemann, U.S. ambassador in Phnom Penh, said in the Cambodian capital earlier that the United States was willing to take the ethnic minority refugees if Cambodia agreed.
Cambodian Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told Reuters Cambodia would not block resettlement as long as it had the agreement of Vietnam.
The hill tribe people fled to Cambodia after Vietnam cracked down on ethnic minorities protesting for land rights and religion freedom in the Central Highlands last year.
Sources in Cambodia's northeastern Mondulkiri province said the people were due to be moved to Phnom Penh within days because of fears that they could be forced back to Vietnam.
Last Friday, the U.N. refugee agency pulled out of an agreement with Hanoi and Phnom Penh to return the refugees to Vietnam, citing alleged coercion to force them to go home and concerns for their safety once they were sent back.
Last year, Washington gave asylum to 38 hill people from the Central Highlands, a move Hanoi denounced as interference in its affairs that would encourage more illegal border crossing.
Reuters - March 27, 2002
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