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More than 350 churches closed
Ho Chi Minh (13.11.2002) Compass / HRWF International Secretariat (14.11.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Information has been pouring out of Vietnam about a recent wave of government repression against Montagnard evangelicals in Vietnams Central Highlands.
Documents acquired in October by religious and human rights workers in this Southeast Asian country and correspondence received in recent days confirm that by the end of September, 354 of 412 churches had been forcibly disbanded in Dak Lak province alone. By mid October, about 50 Christian pastors and elders in this province had been arrested or had "disappeared."
It is expected that the remaining 58 churches in the province will soon be closed.
On November 7, Freedom House released news of the ongoing persecution of Hmong Christians in Vietnams northwest provinces, including the story and photo of a 36-year-old Hmong Christian man who had died from beatings by police and officials because he was a believer. Also, Vietnams normally cautious Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops has recently released a letter decrying the persecution of Catholic Montagnards.
Reports from the affected churches reveal a pattern. Beginning in late summer, leaders of the predominantly Ede minority churches were summoned by local authorities, told their churches were illegal and ordered to disband their church organizations. Many were threatened with dire consequences if they did not comply.
In addition, church leaders were specifically prohibited from any further religious activity outside their own homes with their own families. All communal activities of the churches -- worship, teaching, prayer for the sick, observing holy days, administering sacraments, performing baptisms, weddings, and funerals -- were forbidden. Leaders were forced to sign statements of compliance.
Montagnard churches -- "Montagnard" means "mountain people" and is a collective name for Vietnams many minority tribal groups inhabiting the Central Highlands -- were historically part of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South). Last year, 26 years after the country was reunified under communism, the ECVN(S) was granted legal recognition. However, only a handful of the many hundreds of Montagnard churches were allowed to identify with the ECVN(S).
Although there were frequent problems and many restrictions, government authorities had reluctantly tolerated the existence of Montagnard churches for nearly 20 years, until February 2001. At that time, several thousand Montagnards surprised local authorities by demonstrating against the illegal loss of their lands to ethnic Vietnamese settlers and against the lack of religious freedom.
Waves of heavy-handed crackdowns followed, along with brutal campaigns to force Christians to sign documents agreeing to give up their faith. Many fled into the forest or to Cambodia.
However, this latest move against churches in Dak Lak is the most severe persecution since 1975, when churches were closed and church leaders put in re-education camps for years.
The ECVN(S), which has usually been very cautious about speaking out against abuses, went public this time. The ECVN(S) president, the Rev. Duong Thanh, has written a frank and detailed letter to Vietnams prime minister and to other relevant government agencies. The letter describes the persecution and points out how government actions are contrary to the constitution and to specific promises made by the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB).
The constitutional provision for religious freedom and the promises of the RAB are quoted in the letter, along with a warning that it will impossible to contain this news in Vietnam. The letter concludes by asking the prime minister and relevant government bodies for immediate redress.
Earlier complaints addressed to local authorities by the legally recognized provincial committee of the ECVN(S) resulted in increased pressure and persecution. Authorities seized church leaders at will and took them to unknown destinations. They confiscated church furniture, Christian books, Bibles and musical instruments, and then sealed off or took over the simple chapels where Christians met. Officials have entered chapels while Christians were worshipping and harangued Christians to give up their faith.
Local Dak Lak television is reported by many to have broadcast "Ceremonies of Voluntarily Renouncing Christianity" and has shown pictures of Christians "voluntarily" giving their Bibles and songbooks to be burned.
"All the Christians I met greeted me with tears, asked me to pray with them and then hurried me on my way lest something untoward happen to me," said a recent visitor to the area. "Even some sympathetic government officials received me with tears, recognizing the overwhelming sadness of what is happening."
He added, "Many of the churches in Vietnam are praying night and day for this national tragedy. Please pass this sad news to churches overseas as well so that they may participate in earnest prayer, beseeching the Lord to deliver us from this distress. There are many other heart-rending stories which I cannot tell you now."
The United States Commission on International Religion Freedom in September recommended that the U.S. State Department name Vietnam as a "country of particular concern" -- the worst category for abusers of religious freedom. Yet even seasoned observers of the religious liberty abuses in communist Vietnam are surprised at the ferocity in the latest persecution of Christians.
"Besides visiting gratuitous suffering on innocent people, Vietnam is badly hurting itself in the eyes of the international community," said one long-time observer.
Montagnard Christians forcibly repatriated to Vietnam
Observers Say 1,000 More Refugees Face the Same Fate
Compass Direct (04.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (05.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net -- Cambodian authorities forcibly repatriated on March 2 sixty-three predominantly Christian Montagnards from Vietnam who were seeking asylum in Cambodia.
Sixty-one refugees from a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp who reportedly had "volunteered" to return were also repatriated. But Cambodian and Vietnamese authorities refused to allow the UNHCR any participating role, in violation of a January 21 agreement.
Observers fear that if international condemnation and consequences are not swift and meaningful, the fate of the remaining 1,000 Montagnard refugees in two camps is sealed and they will all be forced to return. Vietnam's tribal peoples are collectively known as Montagnards.
One year ago, Vietnam's tribal minorities shocked authorities when thousands marched on government buildings in Central Highland cities to protest a lack of religious freedom and the illegal loss of much of their traditional lands. Vietnamese authorities responded with a massive military and security crackdown. Many tribals fled their homes for the forest during the crackdown, some disappeared, and more than 1,600 -- almost all Christians -- crossed the border into Cambodia's Mondolkiri and Ratanakiri provinces.
Vietnam immediately pressured Cambodia to return the refugees. Many were turned over to Vietnamese authorities by Cambodian police for a bounty.
Several hundred were returned. Following strong international complaints about these human rights abuses, the UNHCR set up a camp in each of the two provinces and provided at least some protection. Refugees continued to come in modest numbers, fleeing persecution that was well documented.
Late last year, more than a dozen Montagnards in Vietnam received harsh prison sentences for allegedly leading the demonstrations or for organizing flights to Cambodia. Vietnamese authorities relentlessly interrogated many Christian leaders. They organized meetings at which Christians were told to sign affidavits renouncing their faith and reconverting to their animistic past. As a symbolic act to prove their sincerity, some Christians were reportedly made to drink a repugnant cocktail of blood from freshly sacrificed animals mixed with rice liquor.
On January 21, the UNHCR signed a tripartite agreement with Vietnam and Cambodia to repatriate the refugees immediately. Human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch objected to the lack of guarantees for the refugees' security. The document does not use the words "voluntary" or "refugee" or "asylum seeker" or even "person of concern." It did not guarantee the UNHCR free access to the areas of repatriation or follow-up visits.
Critics of the agreement said the UNHCR did not take seriously the evidence presented about religious human rights abuses against Vietnam's minorities and had failed to live up to its protection mandate. Some observers close to the situation even accused the UNHCR of anti-Christian bias.
After being allowed one brief visit to the Central Highlands in early February, the UNHCR assured those who raised questions that Vietnam had promised no reprisals against returnees for illegal departure. In the meantime, the UNHCR, against its normal practice, allowed Vietnamese authorities to bring refugees' relatives into the camps to try to convince their family members to return voluntarily. Once out of earshot of the authorities, some of the visitors reportedly told their relatives not to return under any circumstances .
Nevertheless, the UNHCR announced 109 "volunteers" would return on February 19. In fact, 15 were repatriated. Vietnamese authorities, apparently concerned about international criticism, allowed some international reporters to visit the repatriates. In spite of attempts to control meetings, the repatriates managed to express significant fears to the reporters.
On February 22, UNHCR staff members were prevented by Cambodian authorities from going where they needed to go in order to prepare for more repatriations. On the same day, Vietnamese authorities, who were allowed into the Mondolkiri camp by the UNHCR, threatened the refugees and announced an April 30 deadline for their "voluntary" repatriation. When some refugees objected, Cambodian police with electric truncheons waded in to subdue them in full view of UNHCR officials, sources said.
Finally on February 24, following the refugee beating incident in Mondolkiri, and after being restrained in their visits in Vietnam, the UNHCR announced that the actions by the Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities "seriously eroded" the repatriation agreement and asked these countries for "clarification." Critics said the agreement seemed in danger of imminent collapse.
Attempts continued to convince the refugees to return voluntarily. However, the UNHCR did not allow the Vietnamese officials, who accompanied relatives from Vietnam, into the camps. Nevertheless, refugees were so frightened that they discarded the food brought to them as a gift from home, fearing it might poisoned.
On February 25, Hanoi announced that it was sending 2,300 troops into the Central Highlands to educate people "against plots to get young people to flee to Cambodia" and "maintain infrastructure in 258 villages."
On the morning of March 2, UNHCR officials were turned away when they tried to move 63 new refugee arrivals from a district police station to the refugee camp at Ban Lung, Ratanakiri, Cambodia. In the afternoon, Cambodian forces bound these refugees and hauled them back to the Vietnam border. The same day, they also transported the 61 refugees who reportedly had "volunteered" to return to Vietnam, refusing any UNHCR involvement.
According to one international Vietnam observer, Montagnard refugees have lost faith in the UNHCR, and they refuse to believe recent assurances of Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ms. Phan Thuy Thanh, who told journalists that, "No nation cares more for its citizens than Vietnam."
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Cracking down on Christian tribes in mountains
Zenit.org.(28.01.2002) / HRWF (29.01.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Vietnam recently launched a new campaign of repression against its Montagnards, or mountain people, forcing them to drink pigs' blood and renounce their Christian faith publicly, the newspaper Avvenire reports.
Armed forces and security agents converged on tribes living in the central highlands, most of them Protestants, in mid-December, the Italian newspaper reported Saturday. Raids, arrests, tortures and disappearances ensued, the paper said.
Avvenire also reported that the Vietnamese authorities have received the support of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). According to the Save the Montagnards organization, UNFPA is funding a strict program of birth control that includes sterilization.
Last year, UNFPA allocated $17.9 million to Vietnam, specifically for programs for the Montagnards, the newspaper said.
The December attacks against the Montagnards were concentrated in the province of Daklak, according to a report published by the Montagnard Foundation.
The culminating point of the operation took place in several villages on Dec. 24-25. Two hundred policemen and soldiers arrived in Bion Sup, Buon Ea Rok and Buon Koya, and began to destroy the Christmas decorations.
They "threatened to arrest, strike and incarcerate the Montagnards who left their homes to pray," Avvenire reported.
Moreover, "they killed a pig and forced the Montagnards to drink its blood," a ritual connected to animist traditions, the paper said. Finally, they obliged Christians "to renounce their faith publicly."
Three hundred Montagnard refugees who tried to flee into Cambodia were detained by that country's soldiers on Dec. 28-29. The Cambodian government then sold many of the refugees back to the Vietnamese authorities.
The refugees, including many women and children, were taken to the Dak Mil district and tortured, before they disappeared altogether, according to local residents.
Repression of the Montagnards is not new. But it seems to have intensified over the past two years, following a massive conversion to Christianity in the region.
The Montagnards had a difficult life during the French occupation and also with the government of South Vietnam, despite the fact that during the Vietnam War many were persuaded to side with the Americans.
This led the Communists to step up their repression, beginning in 1975. A key part of the new campaign is "cultural leveling," whereby the regime wants to uproot and absorb all minority cultures in Vietnam.
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