Vietnam jails two hilltribe members for organizing others to flee country
Two hilltribe members were sentenced to up to seven years in jail for organizing others to flee Vietnam's restive Central Highlands into neighboring Cambodia, an official said Wednesday. Rolan Hloe, 38, and Kpuih Chonh, 47, both members of Jarai ethnic minority group, were sentenced to seven and five years in prison respectively in a one-day trial last week in Gia Lai province, deputy provincial chief judge Dinh Minh said.
Hloe arranged for 10 Jarai ethnic minority members to flee to Cambodia last June in exchange for 3 million dong (US$190), Minh said. Chonh and Hloe were arrested by Vietnamese border guards a month later after arranging for 58 others to flee, he said. The two have 15 days to appeal their sentences in the March 28 trial.
Tens of thousands of ethnic minority members, collectively called Montagnards, took to the streets in the Central Highland provinces of Daklak, Dak Nong and Gia Lai on Easter weekend last year to protest the communist government's restrictions on their Protestant religious faith and confiscation of their ancestral lands.International human rights groups say that 10 protesters were killed in clashes with police, but the government says only two people died after being pelted by rocks thrown by other protesters.
Dozens of people have been jailed for organizing the protests or encouraging the exodus of asylum seekers to Cambodia. Hundreds of asylum seekers are being cared for by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at four shelters in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
The Associated Press - April 6, 2005
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