Religion, economy behind Vietnamese minorities' woes
BUON MA THUOT - While Vietnam has been touting its relative political
and
social stability to prospective foreign investors these days, a quiet
row
between the central government and ethnic minorities continues
unabated.
Long-standing distrust led to antigovernment protests by Montagnard
minorities in the Central Highlands in February last year over land
rights
and religious freedom. After Hanoi sent troops to quash the protests,
more
than 1,000 hilltribe members fled across the border to Cambodia.
''My brother has been in jail since taking part in a demonstration last
year,'' said H Rinh in the minority hamlet of Tot Biek outside the Gia
Lai
provincial capital of Play Ku as the 30-year-old housewife wept with
her
baby in the arms.
''I don't want my husband to come back from Cambodia now. I'm afraid he
would be arrested,'' said another woman, referring to a U.N.-supervised
program commenced last month to repatriate the hilltribe members
staying in
refugee camps in Cambodia.
Under the plan being monitored by the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees,
the Vietnamese government has vowed repeatedly that no returnees will
face
punishment or discrimination.
''Those who have been jailed were only those who assaulted government
officials or who were illegally possessing weapons,'' said Dak Lak Gov.
Nguyen Van Lang in his province's capital Buon Ma Thuot in an apparent
bid
to allay the minorities' concerns.
But mutual distrust lingers on both sides.
One of the main factors behind their animosity is the restrictions
imposed
by the lowland ethnic majority Kinh-dominated government on the
highland
minorities' Christian faith. Many Montagnards belong to independent
evangelical Protestant churches that the government regards as illegal.
Hanoi has attributed last year's protests in the Central Highlands to
instigation by and financial assistance from exiles based in the United
States, where more than 1,000 Montagnards have resettled since 1992,
seeking
to create an independent hilltribe state called ''Dega.''
Having long been sympathetic to the plight of the Montagnards, one-time
allies against Vietnam's communists during the war that ended in 1975,
the
U.S. last spring resettled an initial group of 38 highlanders who had
taken
refuge in Cambodia
Washington recently offered to resettle all Montagnards residing in
Cambodia
on account of their wartime associations with the U.S. and alleged
postwar
persecution on account of these associations.
The U.S. policy stance on the Montagnards has angered Hanoi as it
brought
back bitter memories of the 1960s and 1970s, when the highlander
fighters
fought alongside members of the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Central
Highlands.
According to Siu Pek, a clergyman at a government-authorized Protestant
church in the Gia Lai minority village of Pleikuroh, minorities in the
region joined the Dega movement as they were fascinated by the idea
that an
independent state would engender economic prosperity for them.
''Dega people stress economic benefits to minorities who are in
difficult
conditions,'' he said. ''Young minority members leap to join it just
because
they know nothing of the ways of the world.''
The wide economic gap between minorities and the Kinh, who make up
nearly
90% of Vietnam's total population, has always been a source of tension
-- a
situation exacerbated in recent years by the government's coffee
production
push.
Central Highland provinces constitute huge coffee-producing areas,
allowing
Vietnam to enjoy the status of the world's second largest coffee
exporter
next to Brazil.
Planting coffee prevailed in the region in the mid-1990s as the
government's
''doi moi'' renovation policy encouraged the cultivation of cash crops.
Coffee trees are among the easiest crops to grow and can start
producing
beans only two years after being planted, while coffee demand is
constant
internationally.
Dak Lak has grown to be the country's largest coffee-producing
province,
with last year's harvest amounting to 450,000 tons, or in excess of 5%
of
the world's total. But coffee didn't bring province's minorities good
fortune, only another round of hardships.
Large-scale, government-encouraged as well as spontaneous migration of
Kinh
to the Central Highlands has diluted the indigenous culture there and
has
also led to numerous land disputes between ethnic minority households
and
ethnic Kinh migrants.
Dreaming of striking it rich, nearly 500,000 Kinh are estimated to have
flocked to Dak Lak alone, and wrangling with minority farmers over
property
rights has since been the order of the day.
Vietnam's coffee export volume soared to 910,000 tons last year,
compared
with 248,100 tons in 1995. But ironically, this sent prices on the
global
market into a tailspin, causing export value to contract to $385
million
from $595.5 million during the same period.
As a result, Hanoi has sought to cut back on the acreage under
cultivation,
urging coffee producers to switch to other crops. In line with this,
the Dak
Lak provincial government aims to reduce output for this year by 50,000
tons.
''Last year, agricultural tax revenues plunged to 20 billion dong ($2
million) from 50 billion dong due to the cutback in coffee output,''
said
Lang, the Dak Lak governor. ''We are trying our best to persuade
farmers not
to produce coffee beans
By Yasunori Matsuo - Kyodo News - March 11, 2002
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