Montagnards : Vietnam says rights critics out to "blacken" image
Vietnam defended its human rights record on Thursday, saying those who accuse the communist government of suppressing religious and political freedom were merely trying to blacken the country's image.
Launching the southeast Asian nation's first "White Paper on Human Rights", Vice Foreign Minister Le Bang described groups such as the U.S.-based Montagnard Foundation, which lobbies for the rights of ethnic minority tribesmen in the Central Highlands, as a "terrorist organisation".
"They are trying all means to protect a handful of people who are using the label of 'fighting for freedom and human rights' to promote their personal ambitions and foreign interests in disregard of the voice of the majority," the paper said.
The Montagnard Foundation, as well as international civil liberty groups such as Human Rights Watch, accuse Vietnamese authorities of arbitrary detention and routine mistreatment of Montagnards, including forcing Christians to recant their faith.
Vietnam allows six religions, including Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but insists they operate through officially sanctioned institutions.
A dissident Protestant pastor, who said the state had oppressed his church activities, was jailed for three years in November.
Raucous protests greeted Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on a visit to U.S. President Bush in Washington in June, with demonstrators waving placards saying: "Vietnam: Stop Religious Freedom Repression."
Le Bang dismissed such critics, saying they "just wrap themselves in the religious cloak to serve the interests of the outside forces. They do not care about the life of religion followers."
Reuters - August 25, 2005.
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