Vietnam [Montagnard] refugees protest in Cambodian capital

Saturday, July 19, 2008
Reuters

PHNOM PENH -- Ethnic minority asylum seekers protested in the Cambodian capital on Friday against the forced return of their friends and relatives to neighboring Vietnam.

Around 60 Montagnards, the mainly Christian tribespeople from Vietnam's Central Highlands, stormed out of their refugee camp in Phnom Penh to stage the demonstration triggered by the repatriation of 28 refugees. The four-hour protest ended when 40 riot police armed with automatic rifles, batons and shields arrived on the scene and threatened to break up the rally.

"We do not want to go back to Vietnam because they will imprison us. Some of our friends are dying in Vietnam's jails," Kosal Xuan, 21, told Reuters. The group, including children and woman carrying babies, shouted, "Freedom, freedom!" One of their banners said: "Demonstration! We have the right to ask for freedom and justice."

Vietnam's government, accused of rights abuses against the Montagnards who sided with the Americans during the Vietnam War, has given assurances that returnees will not face discrimination. Some 450 Montagnards are in United Nations holding centers in Phnom Penh while their refugee claims are being processed. A spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said 28 had been repatriated to Vietnam early on Friday.

"They are upset that their friends have to go back to Vietnam," UNHCR spokesman Toshi Kawauchi said at the scene of the protest.

The Montagnards fled to Cambodia in 2001 following anti-Vietnamese government demonstrations in the Central Highlands over their ancestral lands and religious freedoms.

Montagnard Deportation Sparks Protest

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
18 July 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

A police attempt to deport 29 Vietnam Montagnards whose refugee applications had been rejected led to a protest outside a UN refugee house in Phnom Penh's Tuol Kork district Friday morning.

"They were worried that [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] would deport them to Vietnam," Cambodian Center for Human Rights investigator Ing Kong Chit said. "They asked UNHCR not to send them back to their home villages, because they are afraid of oppression."

Three of the deportees initially escaped police attempts to return the Montagnards to Vietnam, though one was caught and returned with 26 others.

Two returned to the refugee house and led a protest of about 50 more Montagnards over the deportation.

Montagnards have been crossing the Cambodian-Vietnamese border at Ratanakkiri and Mondolkiri provinces since 2001 seeking refugee status from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Those who are not granted refugee protection are returned to Vietnam.

"They [make a claim] to go to third countries, but not to be sent to Vietnam," UNHCR field protection officer Chung Ravuth said. "This is the main topic that they demonstrated over. And then we called them to come inside and start negotiating. We promised them that we would settle the problem."

More than 400 Montagnards are staying in refugee houses across Phnom Penh, Chung Ravuth said.

More than 1,000 refugees have been accepted as refugees and moved to third countries since 2001, most of them by the US, he said.