Vietnamese refugees rescued from Cambodia
KORNG VILLAGE, Cambodia - The Vietnamese hill tribespeople filed out of Cambodia's rain-soaked jungle in torn flip flops and dirty clothes, carrying the few possessions they took after fleeing persecution in their homeland.
The 21 Montagnards, as various hilltribe groups are collectively known, were among some 200 rescued by U.N. refugee workers and Cambodian authorities in mid-July after spending months hiding in the country's remote, mountainous northeast.
"I decided to flee ... because life in Vietnam is so bad," a rice farmer said as he tended to his sick daughter at a hospital in the border province of Ratannakiri. "We do not have land. We are under pressure because we are minorities." Like others he asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
Many Montagnards fled Vietnam's Central Highlands in April, following mass demonstrations 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; authorities maintain two died.
A father of five from Vietnam's Gia Lai province said he joined 2,000 people in the protests after the government denied him work on a rubber plantation.
"During the demonstration, the authorities shot four of us. We were so scared when we heard the sound of shooting," the 32-year-old said. Afterward, "They came looking for us at our home. Then we ran away."
The rice farmer, also from Gia Lai, participated in those protests and similar ones in 2001 — which led to an exodus of more than 1,000 Montagnards to Cambodia after a government crackdown.
He acted after his land was taken by the government in 1997 and he was pressured to work on a rubber plantation earning a wage so low he couldn't support his family.
Problems in the Central Highlands date back decades.
Many Montagnards, mainly members of Protestant Christian denominations distrusted by Vietnam, were U.S. allies during the Vietnam War. A number were resettled in the United States at war's end in 1975.
Since then, the government has moved in tens of thousands of Vietnamese lowlanders to the area to run coffee and rubber plantations, forcing Montagnards off their ancestral land.
Some of the 200 rescued Montagnards had been hiding in Cambodia's jungle before the April protests — at least one for up to two years, said Cathy Shin, a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees officer.
"It was quite moving to actually see ... the desperation of people coming out of the forest," Shin said.
Sara Colm, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said they'd been documenting abuses in the Highlands going back to the 2001 protests and before.
Hanoi has accused the U.S.-based Montagnard Foundation with instigating the unrest. The group's head is a former guerrilla leader allied with the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
Some of the 200 Montagnards hiding in the Cambodian jungle got help from members of related minorities living in Ratannakiri who alerted human rights groups to the refugees' plight.
Rescuing the Montagnards was complicated by the position of the Cambodian government, which had described them as economic migrants. It has reportedly deported more than 100 Montagnards since April.
Following criticism, Prime Minister Hun Sen said he would let the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reopen offices in two border provinces to Montagnard asylum-seekers.
The 200 rescued from the jungle will be assessed for possible resettlement — many of the 1,000 refugees from the 2001 protests were sent to the United States. They're now staying at a U.N. shelter in Phnom Penh.
"I want the international community to help our Montagnards to find liberty. We really want liberty," the rice farmer said.
By Miranda Leitsinger - The Associated Press - August 13, 2004.
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