The UN camp for Montagnard asylum seekers in Mondolkiri province was looted and burned down Monday about one hour after 18 government trucks left the camp with approximately 550 Montagnards headed for Phnom Penh.
While the identities of the people responsible for the incident could not be confirmed Monday, observers and eyewitnesses at the camp said local Cambodian police and Vietnamese officials were responsible for the damage.
“The camp was torched and looted and the [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] staff had to leave from the Mondolkiri office in a hurry,” said one international observer. An estimated 50 percent of the camp was destroyed by the fire and looted.
When asked who set fire to the camp, the observer said the group was “believed to have included both Cambodian and Vietnamese officials.” More than 1,000 Montagnards have fled Vietnam in the past 15 months, claiming government persecution.
Leng Tun, deputy police chief in Mondolkiri, confirmed that provincial police burned some material in the camp, but said the police only set fire to rubbish and garbage.
“My police officials burned garbage only,” he said Monday. “They did not burn the camp.”
One human rights official at the camp disputed Leng Tun’s account of Monday’s incident.
The official, who declined to be identified, said Cambodian police burned the camp down while Vietnamese officials stood by and watched. The official also said Monday that an unidentified official threatened to kill a Western human rights worker at the camp if the worker did not leave the camp. This could not be confirmed Monday.
Another observer said two Vietnamese officials, dressed in civilian clothes, were seen at the camp.
Vietnamese ambassador Nguyen Duy Hung said Monday that he was not aware the Mondolkiri camp had been torched. He said Vietnamese officials would not have been involved because the camp was located in Cambodian territory.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said the UN camps in Moldolkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces would be closed and the border with Vietnam closed to any future Montagnard asylum seekers, a move that drew heavy criticism from human rights workers, who said such a move would deprive prospective asylum seekers of their right to UN protection until their refugee status could be determined.
Human rights groups have also pointed out that closing the borders to possible asylum seekers violates an international refugee convention which Cambodia has signed.
Meanwhile, the Cambodian government and the UN Monday continued to transport Montagnards to Phnom Penh, using land transportation from Mondolkiri and air flights from Ratanakkiri. A total of 905 asylum seekers from the two camps await medical testing and immigration interviews in hopes of being allowed to resettle in the US.
One Montagnard who was being transported to Phnom Penh from Mondolkiri said Monday that “I think we are all happy, but I will never see my country again.”
US ambassador Kent Wiedemann said that the main objective Monday was to transport the Montagnards from Mondolkiri safely.
But he said the alleged torching was not a positive move, and he said he had asked Ministry of Interior officials to look into the fire at the camp.
Officials from the Ministry of Interior could not be reached for comment on Monday. An observer at the UN camp in Ratanakkiri said Monday that camp had suffered no damage.
(Additional reporting by Phann Ana)
