Cambodian, Vietnamese and UN officials will negotiate the possible return of 300 Vietnamese Montagnards now staying under UN protection in Ratanakkiri and Mondolkiri provinces at a meeting in Bangkok sometime this month.
Jahanshah Assadi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees regional representative, said the meeting will discuss the “step-by-step” process for ensuring that the Montagnards are well-treated and well-received if they eventually choose to return to their homes.
Speaking after a meeting at the Ministry of Interior Friday, Assadi said Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng agreed to the repatriation plan that Vietnam and UNHCR worked out in Hanoi earlier this week. Assadi said UNHCR had earlier promised Cambodian officials that the agency was “serious about pursuing a solution.”
“After a long way of traveling through the tunnel, finally we have reached the light,” said Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak. “We are very happy to follow the results of the discussion between UNHCR and the Vietnamese government.”
The plan will enable UNHCR staff to visit villages in Vietnam’s Central Highlands to interview friends and family members of the Montagnards. Information gathered there would then be relayed to the Montagnards housed in Cambodia so that they can make “informed decisions” on whether to return.
“I hope that there will be enough confidence generated over time that, slowly but surely, people will start to volunteer to go home,” Assadi said. “UNHCR does not repatriate anyone unless it is voluntary.”
US Ambassador Kent Wiedemann called Vietnam’s agreement to the framework and to give UNHCR staff access to the Central Highlands “a very important first step.”
But he added that “we’re a long way away…if ever” from conditions in the Central Highlands improving to the point that the Montagnards would voluntarily return.
“This has got to go a lot further for them to want to go back,” Wiedemann said. “If they were asked today, they would say, ‘no.’ That’s what they told me last week [in Ratanakkiri].”
Assadi said a timeframe for the possible returns would be discussed in Bangkok.
UNHCR would provide transportation back to Vietnam, as well as some kind of aid to the home villages. There would be follow-up visits by UNHCR staff, but there is no plan to set up a permanent UNHCR presence in the Central Highlands, Assadi said.
“Vietnam went out of its way to assure me…that those who had broken immigration laws by leaving the country illegally would be well-received and would not be subject to prosecution,” he said.
In April, 38 Montagnards were granted refugee status by UNHCR and resettled in the US. The designation enraged Vietnam, which claimed they were illegal migrants.
The US decision to allow resettlement also created tension with Vietnam.
