Monday, April 11, 2005

CURRENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN CAMBODIA, VIETNAM AND UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION LEAVES MONTAGNARDS IN DANGER

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (ANS) -- Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation, has told the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, that the current Memorandum of Understanding regarding the fate of more than 700 Montagnard refugees is "flawed and dangerous." (Pictured: President Kok Ksor).

Kok Ksor, speaking on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party (TRP), said the Memorandum was flawed "because it does not contain any explicit guarantees that Montagnard refugees (or those not deemed refugees) who are returned to Vietnam will be effectively protected by the UNHCR."

Ksor told the meeting: "In the year 2005 Montagnard refugees continue to be hunted down by Vietnamese police who pay bounties to Cambodian police for arresting them. Upon their return to Vietnam many refugees are subjected to harsh reprisals, torture and imprisonment."

Ksor said that on 25 January, 2005 the Government of Cambodia, Vietnam and UNHCR signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding over 700 Montagnard asylum seekers currently in Cambodia.

"Their fate remains in question and representatives of more than 300 refugees in Phnom Penh have asked the TRP to deliver this appeal to the UN," Ksor said.

"Any attempt to return Montagnard refugees to Vietnam without guaranteeing their safety inside Vietnam will fail in the long term as returned refugees face reprisals," said Ksor.

He stated: "Thus the most logical solution is a permanent one, namely to ensure that the Vietnamese government permits international observers as NGOs, UNHCR and other UN agencies to have free access to the central highlands where the human rights situation can be monitored and Montagnard people protected."

Ksor said that since 2002 the United Nations Human Rights Committee has requested Vietnam a permanent presence of monitors in the region but the Vietnamese Government still defies its international obligations.

"We ask that under no circumstances should the Montagnard refugees be returned to Vietnam unless international monitors are granted permanent presence to the region to guarantee their protection," Ksor said.

Ksor added: "Ultimately the Montagnard issue will not be resolved unless the underlying concerns facing the Montagnards are addressed, namely religious persecution and the loss of our ancestral lands in Vietnam. It is imperative to the Montagnard people that religious freedom, human rights and land rights are fully and permanently guaranteed to them."

He concluded: "Land rights and self-rule are legitimate rights for our indigenous people and now our people found itself driven into poverty while being systematically dispossessed of our ancestral lands by the Vietnamese authorities. As Mr. Kofi Annan has recently affirmed, the TRP calls to this Commission to apply the highest human rights standards in the fulfillment of its mandate in order to protect the oppressed people of the world."