Banlung town, Ratanakkiri province – Following the emergence of 44 Montagnard asylum seekers from Ratanakkiri’s jungle since Friday, provincial Governor Kham Khoeun gave a green light on Monday to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to continue its work in the area and escort to safety the remaining Montagnards who are still in hiding.
However, Kham Khoeun called on human rights groups and international organizations that are concerned with the flight of the Montagnards from Vietnam’s Central Highlands to tackle the issue at its source and prevent the asylum seeker influx from becoming a problem for Ratanakkiri province.
“You have to find out why they are fleeing their country,” Kham Khoeun told a meeting with representatives from UNHCR, local rights group Adhoc and a six-member delegation from the Interior Ministry and Foreign Ministry who were sent to the province last week to investigate reports that Montagnards were hiding in dire conditions in the jungle.
“Is it because of land confiscation and suppression of their religion, or is it to establish an independent state? If you want to solve this problem you must go to the first place and find out the problems there,” Kham Khoeun said.
All Montagnards hiding in Ratanakkiri province should now present themselves, Kham Khoeun said, so that local authorities and UNHCR can interview them and determine whether they are asylum seekers or a militant group.
Cathy Shin, UNHCR protection and field officer, assured provincial authorities that her organization was working on a strictly humanitarian, apolitical basis with the asylum seekers emerging from the jungle.
The 40 male and two female Montagnards who emerged from the jungle in O’Yadaw district Sunday huddled together at the UNHCR’s former office in Banlung on Monday morning, where they were interviewed in detail regarding their claims for asylum.
Though still on edge, the men and women appeared more relaxed than when they first emerged from the jungle on Sunday. Two ill asylum seekers, who were admitted to Ratanakkiri Referral Hospital on Friday with high fevers, were also registered with UNHCR on Monday.
UNHCR and the government delegation investigating the Montagnard issue are scheduled to leave Banlung on Tuesday morning to meet with several more groups of asylum seekers whose locations have been revealed to Pen Bonnar, Adhoc’s provincial director for Ratanakkiri.
To collect all the remaining asylum seekers “maybe we will have to travel out two times more,” Pen Bonnar told the meeting on Monday.
On Monday, rights organizations in Phnom Penh appeared poised to provide assistance to the asylum seekers.
The Cambodian Red Cross has already prepared food, pots and mattresses to be distributed, said My Samedy, the organization’s secretary-general.
“We are waiting for the local authority to phone us and then weÕll send it directly to Ratanakkiri,” My Samedy said.
Sharon Wilkinson, director of CARE International in Cambodia, said her organization was also waiting for a signal from the government or UNHCR to contribute aid.
“If the government or UNHCR asks CARE or other NGOs to meet needs not met under UNHCR’s existing resources, they would,” she said.
Wilkinson also said the Montagnard issue weighs heavily on developments in Vietnam.
“If Vietnam is looking to develop the Central Highlands, there is hope in the future that these people won’t have to flee,” she said.
The British government aid agency Department for International Development is already initiating development projects in the Central Highlands, an area that has largely been closed to aid workers and the international community, Wilkinson said. “Long term solutions lie in development,” she said.
Reached by telephone Monday, John Mitchell, deputy head of mission at the British Embassy, said: “We have no comment on the Montagnards.” Repeated calls to DFID representatives went unanswered.
Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Duy Hung also did not return repeated phone calls Monday.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen is scheduled to meet with the prime ministers of Vietnam and Laos in Siem Reap “to enhance the socio-economic development of the three respective population[s] living in the border areas of the three countries,” according to a statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry. It did not elaborate on the meeting.
(Additional reporting by Daniel Ten Kate and Yun Samean)
