Several members of US-based Montagnard rights organizations are traveling today to a UN camp for hill tribe asylum seekers in Mondolkiri province with the clear message that repatriation to Vietnam’s Central Highlands is not an option for the approximately 400 Montagnards who fled to Cambodia and are under UN care.
The visit comes amid ongoing talks between the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Vietnamese authorities on how the Montagnards, who claim to be fleeing religious persecution and land rights abuses, can be safely returned to their homes.
“The depth of hatred the Vietnamese government feels toward this population has to be taken into consideration. Repatriation is not a realistic alternative for most of the people in those two camps,” said Kay Reibold, director of the Vietnam Highlands Assistance Project.
UNHCR has set up two sites for Montagnards seeking asylum in Cambodia—one in Ratanakkiri province and a larger camp outside Mondolkiri province’s capital of Sen Monorom.
The delegation, which includes two former US military servicemen and one Montagnard now working the Montagnard Human Rights Organization in the US state of North Carolina, will be traveling with members of the US Embassy. They plan on staying in Mondolkiri through the weekend and then visiting the UNHCR camp in Ratanakkiri.
Delegation members said reported abuses of Montagnards during a crackdown earlier this year in the Central Highlands should rule out sending back any Montagnards.
Even if UNHCR successfully negotiates access to the Central Highlands to monitor the return of Montagnards, delegation members said they were wary that those repatriated would be treated unfairly.
“Vietnam has not lived up to any agreement they have made with any international organization,” said Mike Benge, a senior adviser with the Montagnard Human Rights Organization.
UNHCR officials say that repatriation, if it occurs at all, is still a long way off. Officials from UNHCR have repeatedly stressed that any return to the Central Highlands has to be voluntary.
UNHCR plans to meet with Cambodian and Vietnamese officials on the issue July 26 and 27 in Hanoi.
The US already resettled 38 Montagnards who fled Vietnam earlier this year, provoking an angry response from Hanoi and setting the stage for a political battle over the Montagnard influx that followed February’s disturbances in the Central Highlands.
Though Hanoi accused the US of interfering in Vietnam’s internal affairs, the idea of third-country resettlement was quickly replaced by the suggestion from foreign embassies in Phnom Penh that the Montagnards be allowed to stay in Cambodia or be sent home if Vietnam could guarantee their safety.
But delegation members pointed out that dozens of Montagnard deported earlier this year— including at least seven under UNHCR protection—were reportedly abused.
The members offered resettlement in the US as the only resolution to the refugee situation, saying that two US-based organizations had already offered to sponsor all the Montagnards currently under UNHCR care.
The US has a long relationship with the Montagnard community, going back to the early 1960s when the US enlisted the help of hill tribes to fight communist Vietnamese forces.
Some 400 Montagnards—members of the anti-Hanoi group FULRO—were resettled in the US in the early 1990s.
