Cambodia’s international aid donors must insist that Phnom Penh reopen refugee camps for Montagnard asylum seekers fleeing Vietnam’s Central Highlands, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on Tuesday detailing fresh waves of arrests and intensified suppression of hill tribe communities in Vietnam.
More than 200 Montagnards have been detained in Vietnam since protests for land rights and religious freedom erupted in February 2001, sparking a massive military crackdown in the Central Highlands.
Most recently, some 30 Montagnards were either detained or arrested in December and January in what Rights Watch characterized as a “new assault” by Hanoi against Christian Montagnards or those suspected of supporting land rights in the strife-torn highlands.
“People are being interrogated, arrested, beaten and jailed—simply because they are Christians or are suspected of supporting the popular movement for land rights and religious freedom,” Mike Jendrzejczyk, Rights Watch’s Asia division director, said in a statement. “It’s been almost two years since the demonstrations happened, but the Vietnamese government’s crackdown against the Montagnards is as harsh as ever,” he said.
Jendrzejczyk called on Cambodia’s international donors—scheduled to meet next Tuesday in Phnom Penh—to insist that Cambodia grant fleeing Montagnards at least temporary asylum on its soil. “Hundreds of refugees have been turned back at Cambodia’s borders in recent months,” Jendrzejczyk said.
“It is unconscionable for Cambodia to disregard its international obligations and refuse refugees at least temporary asylums. The international community should not sit idly,” he said.
Hundreds of Montagnards have been forcibly deported to Vietnam since Phnom Penh closed its borders to fleeing asylum seekers last April after agreeing to allow the US to resettle some 1,000 hill tribe asylum seekers housed in two UN refugee camps in Cambodia.
The Cambodian government has routinely defended its actions by saying anyone crossing the country’s borders is an illegal immigrant subject to deportation.
The US Immigration and Naturalization Services are currently processing the last 140 Montagnards still in Phnom Penh awaiting resettlement.
According to the Rights Watch report, the latest wave of Montagnard arrests in the Central Highlands peaked in December as communist officials detained dozens and banned Christmas church services. At least 70 Montagnards are serving hefty prison sentences for their role in the 2001 demonstrations or for seeking asylum in Cambodia.
Since January 2002 authorities have also closed more than 400 evangelical Christian churches in the Central Highlands, according to a letter from the government-recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam, South that was cited in the Rights Watch report.
