'New’ Vietnam: Montagnards up against the wall

May 9, 2007

By Lorraine Ahearn, Staff Writer
News-Record (Greenboro, North Carolina, USA

Well, it's now been six months since the U.S. removed its new trade partner, Vietnam, from a human rights blacklist. And guess what?

Human rights under one of the world's most oppressive regimes have taken a turn for the worse, according to relief workers, members of Congress and leaders of the Montagnard exile community in Greensboro.

"The Vietnamese government lied to the world in order to join the World Trade Organization," said Y-Siu Hlong, executive director of the 8,000-member Montagnard-Dega Association based here. "In reality, they still put people in jail for their beliefs; they still arrest students for using the Internet."

The ethnic highlanders have long been a thorn in the Vietnamese government's side. They are a largely Christian racial minority in an officially Buddhist country and fought for the U.S. in the Vietnam War.

But foreign correspondents and other outside observers say the situation for many others deemed "subversive" by the Vietnamese government has likewise deteriorated since President Bush's visit to Hanoi last fall.

The visit marked the communist government's acceptance into the world trade community and a cementing of defense and intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and its one-time enemy. Since then, Vietnam has been assured a seat on the U.N. Security Council in 2008-09.

Behind the veneer of world respectability, however, critics say the government has engaged in a campaign of suppression and intimidation of perceived enemies of the state.

Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released a scathing report on what it termed a "wide-ranging crackdown on individuals associated with human rights, democracy, legal reform, labor and free speech organizations."

Since January, the report said, numerous Catholic and Mennonite leaders have been arrested and beaten — most notably, Father Nguyen Van Ly, founder of a democracy movement and editor of the magazine Freedom of Speech. Ly, who previously served 13 years in prison, had his parish house raided this year and was sentenced April 2 to another eight years for the crime of "propagandizing against the state."

Meanwhile, one of the country's only human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai, was arrested in March and is awaiting trial on charges of collecting evidence of religious persecution, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security, to send to "enemy powers and overseas reactionaries."

Presumably, these include the U.S. House of Representatives, which on the same day as the May 2 report was published, voted 404-0 to condemn Vietnam's civil rights abuses and call for the release of political prisoners.

The resolution sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), said in a floor speech that after a period of improvement in human rights that rewarded Vietnam last fall with acceptance into the world community, the government had quickly undone the progress.

"Vietnam has reverted back to its repressive practices," said Smith, who met with Father Ly, "and has arrested and imposed lengthy prison sentences on numerous individuals whose only crime has been to seek democratic reform and respect for human rights in their country."

Aggravating the situation for Montagnards, who in the past tried to escape to Cambodia and Thailand, is a policy adopted May 1 by the U.S. State Department. No longer are fleeing Montagnards granted refugee status, but must go home and try to seek asylum at the U.S. Consulate. A relief worker who has traveled extensively in the highlands, which are under martial law, calls the rule "insane."

"These were our allies," said Kay Reibold of the Montagnard Human Rights Organization in Raleigh. "But as part of the 'bigger picture,' they're kind of expendable now."

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com