By Douglas Gillison
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
Human Rights Watch on Sunday defended its latest report on the Montagnards, saying that if the UN High Commissioner for Refugees really believed that all was well in Vietnam's Central Highlands, it would not be granting refugee status to those fleeing the area.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva on Friday that last week's Rights Watch report, which accused UNHCR of deliberately understating or failing to detect human rights abuses against Montagnards, was unfair and drew generalized conclusions from only five unverifiable witness accounts.
"Our report is based on dozens of firsthand interviews with people who have fled the Central Highlands," said a Rights Watch official involved in preparing the report.
"If they are recognizing claims, they're recognizing that people are fleeing persecution," the official said of UNHCR. "There's a sort of double-speak going on."
The Rights Watch report alleged that Vietnamese authorities have tortured and detained some asylum seekers returning to Vietnam from Cambodia.
Most of the roughly 2,400 Montagnard asylum seekers who have crossed into Cambodia since 2001 have been resettled in third countries, according to UNHCR.
Speaking in Geneva, Redmond dismissed Rights Watch's claims.
"Frankly, we find the report unbalanced and reject its conclusions," he said. "The accusations do not tally with our firsthand experience of the Montagnard caseload in Cambodia, nor with our 12 monitoring missions to visit returnees in the Central Highlands of Vietnam."
Redmond said that UNHCR has visited 64 percent of the returnees, interviewed the individuals who told Human Rights Watch of mistreatment and found "discrepancies" in what they said.
"There have been no similar allegations of mistreatment from any other returnees," he added.
Redmond also took issue with Rights Watch's claim that violence occurred during a July 2005 deportation of nearly 100 Montagnards from Phnom Penh to Vietnam.
A UNHCR official in Phnom Penh had said on the day of the deportation that violence had occurred. The UNHCR in Geneva retracted this claim nine days later, despite accounts from relief workers who witnessed the operation that violence had taken place.
"HRW recycles a version of events surrounding a deportation from Cambodia in July 2005 of rejected asylum seekers, claiming unwarranted violence. This is factually incorrect," Redmond said.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva on Friday that last week's Rights Watch report, which accused UNHCR of deliberately understating or failing to detect human rights abuses against Montagnards, was unfair and drew generalized conclusions from only five unverifiable witness accounts.
"Our report is based on dozens of firsthand interviews with people who have fled the Central Highlands," said a Rights Watch official involved in preparing the report.
"If they are recognizing claims, they're recognizing that people are fleeing persecution," the official said of UNHCR. "There's a sort of double-speak going on."
The Rights Watch report alleged that Vietnamese authorities have tortured and detained some asylum seekers returning to Vietnam from Cambodia.
Most of the roughly 2,400 Montagnard asylum seekers who have crossed into Cambodia since 2001 have been resettled in third countries, according to UNHCR.
Speaking in Geneva, Redmond dismissed Rights Watch's claims.
"Frankly, we find the report unbalanced and reject its conclusions," he said. "The accusations do not tally with our firsthand experience of the Montagnard caseload in Cambodia, nor with our 12 monitoring missions to visit returnees in the Central Highlands of Vietnam."
Redmond said that UNHCR has visited 64 percent of the returnees, interviewed the individuals who told Human Rights Watch of mistreatment and found "discrepancies" in what they said.
"There have been no similar allegations of mistreatment from any other returnees," he added.
Redmond also took issue with Rights Watch's claim that violence occurred during a July 2005 deportation of nearly 100 Montagnards from Phnom Penh to Vietnam.
A UNHCR official in Phnom Penh had said on the day of the deportation that violence had occurred. The UNHCR in Geneva retracted this claim nine days later, despite accounts from relief workers who witnessed the operation that violence had taken place.
"HRW recycles a version of events surrounding a deportation from Cambodia in July 2005 of rejected asylum seekers, claiming unwarranted violence. This is factually incorrect," Redmond said.
2 comments:
What does UNHCR know anything about the Vietcong trickery! A lot of things that are going on in Montagard community are carefully control by the Vietcong! The Vietcong can threaten these Montagard with their life anytime and what can the UNHCR do to help them. UNHCR is not going to spend every day of the year to look after these MOntagard. Regardless what the UNHCR had siad the Montagard are still helpless people who need help. If the Vietcong have no problem with the Montagard people and why did it took so many years for the UNHCR to admit that there is no mistreatment of the Montagard people and why are these MOntagard are running out of Vietname in the place! These UNHCR officials must be on drug!
The fate of these Montargnads remind us that KHMER KROM have the same problems. Why did Hun Sen send them back?
Anyway UNHCR officials don't care
about the truth. Vietnam is more important.
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