Khmer Krom need freedom and religious rights from Hanoi more than electricity

Mekong provinces to spend $30 mln bringing power to Khmer homes

Saturday, August 8, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Power companies in the Mekong Delta provinces of Tra Vinh and Soc Trang will invest about VND532 billion (US$30 million) to bring electricity to more than 30,000 Khmer households.

At a meeting in Tra Vinh Friday, Electricity of Vietnam’s Power Company No. 2 said it would fix 207 kilometers of medium voltage lines, 654 kilometers of low voltage lines and install 418 transformation stations in 83 communes in the province.

The facilities, which will require VND227 billion ($13 million), will serve some 20,000 households, including 12,400 Khmer people.

Also on Friday, Soc Trang Power Company’s Director Huynh Minh Hai said the company would spend VND305 billion ($17 million) installing power lines and transformers to bring electricity to another 20,000-plus Khmer households.

Reported by Thanh Dung – Thanh Phong

Cambodia's KRouge trial debates atrocity film

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
By Suy Se

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Lawyers at the trial of the Khmer Rouge's chief torturer argued Wednesday over the use of a film showing the liberation of the prison where he allegedly oversaw the deaths of 15,000 Cambodians.

Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal launched an initial hearing in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known by the alias Duch, on Tuesday. It wrapped up on Wednesday and full hearings are expected to start next month.

Prosecutors told the court they wanted to introduce as evidence a film shot by Vietnamese forces showing conditions at the prison two days after they helped to drive the Khmer Rouge regime out of Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979.

"It is an absolute must for this trial chamber to have all available evidence," said co-prosecutor Robert Petit, adding that they wanted to call the cameraman and other witnesses related to the video.

However co-defence lawyer Kar Savuth questioned the authenticity of the evidence, and argued it should be considered a Vietnamese propaganda film.

"We the defence regard this video footage as having political motivation in nature to disguise the truth of the nature of the event," he said.

The video shows scenes of horror inside the abandoned prison, which was a former high school, including several bloated corpses strapped to iron bedframes where they were apparently tortured.

It also shows five children who survived the retreat of the Khmer Rouge from the jail by hiding in a pile of washing.

Duch, a former maths teacher now aged 66, could be seen listening impassively to the arguments through headphones on the second day of the tribunal's initial hearing, which is dealing with procedural and legal matters.

Lawyers also presented lists of witnesses, before the chief judge Nil Nonn announced the end of the initial hearing after just a day and a half.

He did not say when the trial would reopen, but court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis said substantive hearings with witness testimony would likely begin in "late March".

"There's greater understanding of how the trial will unfold and what the objectives of various parties are," Jarvis told reporters at the court.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder, and faces a life sentence. The tribunal cannot impose the death penalty.

He has taken responsibility for his iron-fisted rule at Tuol Sleng prison which was used as a mass torture centre to extract confessions from alleged traitors that they were spies for the CIA, KGB and other foreign powers.

Only a handful of the estimated 15,000 men, women and children sent to the prison are known to have survived. Most were executed and buried in mass graves at the so-called "Killing Fields" in Choeung Ek near the capital.

He has previously expressed regret for his crimes but has said that he was acting under orders from leaders of the 1975-1979 communist Khmer Rouge.

Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge rose to power as a tragic spinoff from the US conflict in Vietnam, emptying Cambodia's cities to take society back to a rural "Year Zero."

Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork under the movement. The Khmer Rouge were ousted by Vietnamese-backed forces in January 1979. Pol Pot died in 1998.

The Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal was established in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between Cambodia and the United Nations, and has been further delayed by legal arguments and bail hearings.

The government of Cambodian premier Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge fighter, has been accused of trying to protect the regime's ex-cadres from justice.

Cambodia receives Khmer Rouge films from Vietnam

Australia Network News

Cambodia has received 20 Khmer Rouge documentary films from Vietnam, which will be used as evidence against the regime at the trial of top Khmer leaders.

Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, says the films are in English and Khmer, and were mostly made by Vietnamese soldiers between 1973 and 1982.

He says they cover several aspects of the regime of interest to the trial, including conditions for children, the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, treatment of foreigners, and killings Vietnamese citizens in Vietnam's Tai Ninh Province.

Chhang Youk told reporters that Vietnam is the first ASEAN country to provide key documents ahead of the trials of jailed Khmer leaders, which Cambodia is preparing to open early next year.

Five Khmer Rouge leaders are being held in a pretrial detention center at the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

''The films are parts of our history and they are considered as hard evidence besides the reading texts," Chhang Youk said.

"These films will help the younger generation to a better understanding of our history,'' he added.

He says while Vietnam has cooperated with his center since 1998, China and Thailand have failed to do so even though he says they may have similar films.

UNHCR: Montagnards fled to Cambodia because they were deceived, have low education level ... and not from VN's oppression and persecution

29/06/2007
UNHCR makes fact-finding tour in Dak Lak

A representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that ethnic minority people in Central Highlands who illegally crossed the border to Cambodia were easily to be deceived due to their low educational level, according to the Army Newspaper.

UNHCR spokesman Kitty McKinsey, who is leading a delegation on a fact-finding visit to Central Highlands province of Dak Lak from June 26-28, made the remark during a meeting with provincial People’s Committee Chairman Lu Ngoc Cu on June 27.

McKinsey was quoted as saying that almost all of the returnees were not refugees, and therefore, they were unfit to settle in a third country.

The delegation arrived in districts of Buon Don and Cu M’gar, visited boarding and vocational training schools for ethnic minority children and met directly with families of those ethnic minority people who had illegally left for Cambodia in 2006.

The UN representative said that she would reflect objectively and honestly what she had seen during the visit, thus helping the international community understand more about the Vietnamese Government’s policies on the ethnic minority people in Central Highlands, the paper said.

McKinsey said she was also impressed with the development of Vietnam since her first visit to the country in 1991.

Source: VNA

Verbal dispute between Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation and Vietnamese official

The five Khmer Krom monks arrested, defrocked, and sentenced to jail by Hanoi's regime (Photo: Sralanh Khmer)

23 May 2007
By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia (a station labeled insolent by Hun Sen)
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

Since last week, a verbal dispute erupted between the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF) and a Vietnamese government official, over the truth regarding the sentence handed down on Khmer Krom monks in Southern Vietnam.

At the Sixth UN Permanent Forum held in New York City, a representative of the KKF delegation raised the issue of Hanoi’s pressure and oppression against Khmer Kampuchea Krom people in their practice of Buddhism in Kampuchea Krom (South Vietnam). However, Hanoi’s representative at the UN reacted by saying that the KKF claims are propaganda and accusations made by a party that is opposed to the Hanoi regime.

Last week, Nguyen Tan Than, the deputy-representative of Hanoi’s permanent mission at the UN, accused the KKF and the Montagnard Foundation – based in the US – of involvement in separatism in Vietnam.

During the conference, Nguyen Tan Than requested that Khmer Krom and Montagnard representatives be banned from attending the forum. Nguyen Tan Than verbal accusations were pursued until this week during the Sixth session of the UN Permanent Forum which will be held until 25 May.

During a speech given at the Sixth UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), Nguyen Tan Than defended Hanoi’s actions, in particular, the recent arrest and sentence of Khmer Krom monks.

Nguyen Tan Than said: “ It is very regrettable and very discouraging to see this Forum believing baseless information from an outside source rather than believing information provided by our government, or the information about our effort to help the 53 ethnic minorities in Vietnam. A declaration which we heard today, claims that our [Hanoi] government arrested and sentenced a number of monks, as if these actions were taken based on [Hanoi’s] opposition to religious belief, or based on an alleged peaceful demonstration.”

Nguyen Tan Than also added that: “The constitution and the law in Vietnam guarantee the right to freedom, religion, and belief, and they guarantee the equality of rights among everybody in front of the law. These are the goals that Vietnam will pursue in order to develop the country’s law. Whoever perpetrates a crime, must be sentenced under the Vietnamese law, irrespective of whether they are ethnic minorities or their religious belief.”

Thach Ngoc Thach, the representative of the KKF delegation, reacted to Nguyen Tan Than’s defense of the Hanoi regime. He said that KKF brought in documents detailing the accusations KKF made against Hanoi, and they will be displayed to the UN conference on Tuesday, so that the world could witness the violation of the rights of indigenous people in Vietnam, and that these violations actually took place.

Thach Ngoc Thac said: “They accused the monks of creating a traffic jam, of creating disorder in the village only, this is neither a crime for creating separatism, nor is it a crime to hurt the interest of society. We want to show to the UN and to the forum that even Vietnam’s own representative did not receive the actual information from his own government, it is totally the opposite, and today we will bring to the forum about the sentence handed down in Khleang province (Soc Trang), a case which the Vietnamese representative is contradicting with his own government.”

UNPFII will conclude this Friday. Thach Ngoc Thach said that he will try all he can to provide some points for Vietnam to recognize. “We demand that, in term of Cambodian Buddhism, it should be administered by Khmer Krom monks, and not by the Vietnamese government, that is: all sentences involving religion should involve the Khmer (Krom) community, it should not be an oppression, it should not be a sentence without proper consultation with Khmer (Krom) people and Khmer (Krom) Buddhists. We do not want to see the Vietnamese government doing anything it wants.”

Thach Ngoc Thach said that the Vietnamese effort to prevent KKF and the Montagnard Foundation from participating in the forum was a failure. He said that Mrs. Wichy, the UNPFII chairwoman, said at the beginning of this week, that all indigenous people must have their voices in front of the law.

The chairwoman also said that any country that have issues with indigenous people, it must discuss them in front of the law, it should not violate (the indigenous people), and it should avoid using violence against indigenous people living inside its borders.

'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

Irony?: VN province restores Khmer pagodas while VN communist regime destroys Khmer Krom pagodas in VN

Vietnam province restores Khmer pagodas for New Year

An Giang province on Vietnam’s southern border with Cambodia restored 65 Khmer pagodas at a cost of VND300 million ($18,714) ahead of the upcoming Chol Chnam Thmay, the Khmer New Year Festival.

A further VND50 million ($3,120) was also allocated to these pagodas to be used for the teaching of Pali, an ancient language derived from Sanskrit.

During the harvest festival on April 12-14, provincial officials will call on over 60 ethnic Khmer families in the area.

An Giang is home to over 86,000 Khmers, who account for 4 percent of the province’s population.

Source: VNA

Vietnam tries to speed up border demarcation before 2008 election?

10/04/2007
Border demarcation to be sped up

VietNamNet Bridge - Government steering boards overseeing the demarcation of borders with Cambodia and China met in Quang Ninh province, on April 9, to discuss plans to ratchet up their progress.

The conference, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, brought together representatives from government ministries, 17 bordering localities and key staff members of the steering boards.

"Border demarcation and the planting of border markers are of great significance to the nation's internal and external affairs, defence, security and socio-economic development," Deputy PM Khiem said.

"The work will help define clearly the actual border and contribute to creating a stable environment to foster socio-economic development, increase cross-border linkage, and promote friendship with our neighbouring countries," the Government leader stressed.

2007 was defined as a major year for demarcating the country's borderline with China . The year will also see work begin on the country's shared border with Cambodia as well.

Participants at the meeting agreed to increase the pace of demarcation on both borderlines so the work can be completed by the end of 2008. The leaders of all three countries are supportive of the plan.

(Source: VNA)

Communist Vietnam labels Democracy promoters as terrorists

March 31, 2007
Terrorists under the cover of democracy
VNA (Hanoi)

Vietnamese people and the international community have been following frenzied the activities to sabotage the Vietnamese State by the so-called Vietnam Canh Tan Cach Mang Dang (Vietnam Rene Revolutionary Party) or Viet Tan.

The Viet Tan is a terrorist organisation of reactionaries in exiles who, under the cover of promoting democracy, have coordinated with hostile elements inside and outside the country to sabotage the people's government and destroy the country's cause of renewal and its people's efforts to build the country in peace.

In an attempt to sabotage the Vietnamese revolution, Hoang Co Minh, a Commodore of the Navy in the former Saigon regime, who fled to the US in 1975 together with elements hostile to socialism in Vietnam, set up a counter-revolutionary organisation in southern California on April 30, 1980, called the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam.

The creed of the Viet Tan is to abolish the people's Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

On September 10, 1982, Hoang Co Minh organised a congress in his base in Udon Thani, Thailand, to establish the Viet Tan as the nerve-centre directing all activities of the front.

From 1982-89, under the leadership of the Viet Tan, the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam sent dozens of members to southern Vietnam via Laos and Cambodia to develop local branches. The Vietnamese authorities, in cooperation with those in neighbouring Laos, uncovered and arrested hundreds of reactionary elements and seized a great number of weapons and reactionary documents.

Between 1989 and 2000, the Viet Tan set up additional front organisations, through which it implemented the "Nancy Scheme," making contact with hostile elements in the country to establish a reactionary organisation called the Alliance of Renovated National Forces, with the aim of overthrowing the Vietnamese Government.

Furthermore, the Viet Tan expanded its "yellow flag movement" to agitate anti-Vietnamese feeling within overseas Vietnamese communities. The Viet Tan also took advantage of the Vietnamese-American Public Affairs Committee to work against the Vietnamese State on " democracy and human rights" issues in addition to lobbying extreme elements of the US political circle to issue bills against Vietnam.

On Sept. 19, 2004, the organisation started activities publicly in Berlin, Germany, and later in Australia, Norway, France, Belgium and other places worldwide.

The Viet Tan has also developed its forces by promoting efforts to lure Vietnamese citizens who are studying and working abroad to return home to be a nucleus of efforts to disrupt society and security and to gather forces for the promise of a "colour revolution" in Vietnam.

At the same time, they actively supported reactionary organisations such as the Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights for Vietnam, the Advancement Party, the Democratic Party XXI and Bloc 8406.

With its mafia-like nature, leaders of the Viet Tan continued its commitment to carrying out terrorist acts to sabotage the country. By the end of 2002, the police discovered that the Viet Tan had instructed a number of its elements in Vietnam to gather a clandestine armed force and hire criminals to assassinate officials and later ruthlessly disposed of this army in order to silence them.

Taking advantage of Vietnamese Party and State policies on economic openness and the advancement of democracy, the Viet Tan is planning to use foreign organisations as a cover through which its members could enter Vietnam to wage reactionary activities.

The organisation is also attempting to contact extremist elements in the country and encourage them to take overtly reactionary actions against the administration.

It has established law firms and businesses and designed microcredit programmes in Vietnam with the aim of generating finances and creating a cover to support the activities of agents it has placed in the country.

The outlawed organisation seeks to ignite the public throughout the country to go "head on" against the State and stir up a storm of petitions throughout the country to intensely prepare for a scheme of publicising the Viet Tan organisation in Vietnam in 2007.

The Viet Tan is now launching campaigns against Vietnam in other countries, including ones to rally overseas Vietnamese and foreigners to boycott Vietnamese commodities and air services. In fact, a campaign to "boycott" air services offered by Vietnam Airlines has already begun.

Additionally, the Viet Tan has tried to get a number of politicians holding extreme right-wing views in the US, Europe and several foreign human rights organisations to use their voices to intervene in the arrest of a number of law-breaking elements.

The Viet Tan has worked out a plan to publicise its operation and arouse and encourage elements inside the country to take actions which, once prevented, would serve as proof that Vietnam was " abusing democracy and human rights."

For its activities against society, including terrorist activities against Vietnamese residing abroad, the Viet Tan has been categorised by Vietnam as a terrorist organisation which must be stopped in order to ensure public security.

Blatant Vietnamese lies about improvements of Khmer Krom living conditions in Khleang (Soc Trang) province

03/03/2007
Better living conditions for Khmer in Soc Trang

VietNamNet Bridge – The Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang has implemented a series of policies to upgrade its socio-economic infrastructure and to improve living conditions for the Khmer ethnic people.

Thanks to the Government's Programmes 134 and 135, national projects on agriculture and forestry development, and other local contributions, the province has built 397 facilities with a combined investment capital of more than VND247bil (roughly US$15.5mil). Transport constructions accounted for 70% of the projects, while irrigation, power and school facilities made up 30%.

By early 2007, the province had spent nearly VND161bil to build 28,600 houses for poor families, of which, 17,300 houses were handed over to Khmer ethnic people.

The province also carried out various social policies, including subsidies worth VND21.4bil on necessaries, housing assistance for 45,000 poor households and production development assistance for 3,400 households, most of them of Khmer ethnic community.

Through these efforts, hopefully Soc Trang province will successfully reduce the rate of Khmer poor households to 20% by the end of 2006 or 38.5% (according to the country's new criteria).

So far, 65.5% of Khmer households in rural areas have access to safe water, and more than 64% have access to the national electricity grid. 120,000 poor Khmer households in the province were provided with heath care insurance cards each year and nearly 500,000 patients benefited from free medical examinations.

The provincial authorities this year plan to build more than 10,000 new houses for poor Khmer ethnic people and speed up the transition of agricultural structure in order to facilitate socio-economic development in Khmer-inhabited areas.

The province is also working out a preferential credit policy for poor people, particularly those of Khmer ethnic minority, to help them increase their production.

Source: VNA