Montagnard asylum seekers in Mondolkiri province were beaten with electric batons by Cambodian police during a “heated exchange” with a visiting Vietnamese delegation Friday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement blasting Cambodian and Vietnamese officials.
Efforts to repatriate more than 1,000 Montagnards under the UNHCR’s care in Cambodia are being “seriously eroded by the actions of the two governments,” the agency said Saturday.
“UNHCR is urgently seeking clarification at the highest levels from both governments,” the agency reported.
As the repatriation deal fell apart over the weekend, the UNHCR stopped returning Montagnards to Vietnam’s Central Highlands, where a government crackdown on hill tribe protests a year ago drove thousands into Cambodia.
Asylum seekers continue to trickle into the camp in Ratanakkiri province. About 20 arrived last week, officials said.
So far, only 15 Montagnards have gone back voluntarily.
All three sides agreed in January to a repatriation plan the UNHCR claimed would allow the Montagnards to return home voluntarily, though many interviewed in the camps have vowed never to go back for fear they will face harassment and imprisonment by Vietnamese authorities.
But in an unexpected push to end Cambodia’s refugee crisis, senior Cambodian and Vietnamese officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen and Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Dinh Bin, agreed Thursday to send “all” the asylum seekers back by April 30, police officials confirmed.
“The introduction of a deadline clearly undermines the voluntary nature of return,” the UNHCR release stated.
The agency also said its monitoring team has been denied access to villages in the Central Highlands—a key provision of the repatriation deal.
“UNHCR considers the tripartite agreement to be sound, providing it is scrupulously implemented exactly as agreed on January 21,” the agency reported.
Cambodian officials maintain they are following the agreement and resisting pressure from Vietnam to return the Montagnards, whom Hanoi has referred to as “illegal escapees.”
“Cambodia is working properly. We are old enough to avoid any pressure from anybody,” said Foreign Affairs Ministry Undersecretary of State Long Visalo, who signed the repatriation deal for Cambodia.
But critics of the plan, which includes no written reference to “voluntary repatriation,” claim Montagnards can be forced back to Vietnam, even if Cambodia follows the agreement.
There have also been reports of earlier delegations visiting the camps in an attempt to influence Montagnards to return, one observer said.
Witnesses said Friday’s delegation was accompanied by a large number of armed Cambodian police. US Ambassador Kent Wiedemann called police presence a “strong-arm tactic.”
The ambassador has been a critic of the repatriation plan, which he said was moving too quickly. Vietnam has countered by accusing the US of trying to undermine the repatriation efforts.
“This is an agreement between three parties only: Cambodia, Vietnam and UNHCR,” Vietnamese Embassy spokesman Chu Dong Loc said, adding a large number of asylum seekers want to return home.
While the US does have a “special sympathy” for the Montagnards, who fought alongside US troops during the war in Vietnam, Wiedemann said, “We are really not trying to create political frictions.”
