(New York) Human Rights Watch said today that no ethnic minority asylum seekers from Vietnam currently in Cambodia should be repatriated until sufficient safeguards are in place on the Vietnamese side of the border.
Talks between Vietnam, Cambodia, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are scheduled to open today in Hanoi, Vietnam, to discuss the fate of more than 300 Montagnard asylum seekers from Vietnam's Central highlands who are currently under U.N. protection at two sites in Cambodia. UNHCR has said that 107 of the border crossers do not qualify for protection, and forty-one have already had to leave one of the sites. Cambodian Ministry of Interior officials have said that all those "screened out" by UNHCR would be repatriated, forcibly if necessary.
"We continue to receive reports of intimidation and surveillance of ethnic minorities in Vietnam," said Sidney Jones, executive director for Asia at Human Rights Watch. "Until independent observers have better access to the Central Highlands, human rights conditions improve, and we can be sure there's no threat of retaliation, no one should be sent back."
Several hundred indigenous minority people from Vietnam have fled to Cambodia since February 2001, when widespread rural demonstrations over land rights spurred a government crackdown. Recent reports show that police are continuing to interrogate and monitor suspected leaders of the demonstrations and those active in the Protestant "house church" movement, which is seen as a threat to Vietnamese Communist Party authority. Family members of individuals who have fled to Cambodia since the demonstrations have been put under intensive surveillance, as have former members of the guerrilla army FULRO (Front Unifie pour la Lutte des Races Opprimes).
In April, thirty-eight asylum seekers who fled to Cambodia were resettled in the United States. From March until May, prior to the establishment of a UNHCR presence in Cambodia's border provinces, Cambodian authorities forcibly repatriated more than 100 asylum seekers back to Vietnam. Since mid-May, when UNHCR secured Cambodian government approval to provide protection to asylum seekers and established two sites in the Cambodian border provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri, the number of deportations appears to have dropped. On July 25, UNHCR stated that it had screened all of the Montagnard refugees, determining that more than one hundred did not qualify for
Refugee protection. Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng then said the screened-out refugees were "illegal immigrants [who] must return home." Human Rights Watch said it was premature for UNHCR to make decisions that specific individuals were not entitled to protection in Cambodia because there is still no reliable assessment of conditions on the Vietnamese side of the border. Until now, access to the region has been strictly controlled by Vietnamese authorities. No UNHCR personnel have yet visited the region and the few visits by international observers that Vietnamese authorities have allowed were tightly restricted.
Background
According to Human Rights Watch interviews with recent refugee arrivals in Cambodia, ongoing human rights violations in the Central Highlands include:
1. Dozens of people have been detained for questioning at commune and district police stations since the February demonstrations in which thousands of ethnic minority people in Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces in Vietnam's Central Highlands protested against land encroachment and religious repression. Some were beaten, kicked, or shocked with electric truncheons by police officers upon arrest or during transport to police stations, and in a smaller number of cases, during interrogation. An initial wave of arrests in early February of suspected leaders of the demonstrations was followed by arrests in March in both Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces of others accused of being "troublemakers." Currently at least a dozen ethnic minority people are thought to be imprisoned in the provincial prisons in Ban Methuot and Pleiku cities for their participation in the demonstrations. It is not known whether any have been officially charged, although Vietnamese officials have announced that trials will be conducted for those accused of damaging national security and disturbing public order.
Immediately after the demonstrations, military reinforcements - Including helicopters and tanks - were dispatched to the Central Highlands. In many areas, these military units remained stationed at commune (or subdistrict) centers. Tanks have been moved as recently as the first week in June, when they were moved from Ban Methuot city in the direction of Buon Sup village in Dak Lak province.
2. The Vietnamese government has stepped up its suppression of freedom of assembly and religion. Human Rights Watch has received reports of security forces burning down several Protestant churches in Gia Lai since the demonstrations. At least one villager was killed by security forces in a standoff with villagers attending a large church gathering at Plei Lao village, Chu Se district, Gia Lai on March 10. Protestant religious services are banned, except those conducted among family members in homes. Villagers are now largely forbidden to meet in groups of more than five. A local decree in Dak Lak province calls for gatherings of more than five people to be dispersed.
3. Freedom of movement is also restricted, with authorities requiring written permission to be secured in advance of any temporary absence from the village, making it very difficult for farmers to go to work in their fields.
4. Access to the Central Highlands by foreign media, diplomats and the UN remains restricted. Western media were escorted on one tightly-controlled government sponsored tour to Gia Lai and Dak Lak in mid-March. U.S. Ambassador Pete Peterson, who was finally granted approval to tour the highlands in July, was highly critical of provincial officials in Gia Lai for aggressively trying to control his visit to the province and preventing him from talking freely with villagers. He said officials were more open and candid in the two other highland provinces he visited, Dak Lak and Lam Dong.
Human Rights Watch called on Vietnamese authorities to cease repression of house church leaders, banning of meetings, and arbitrary police surveillance. It also called for the Vietnamese government to release the names of those imprisoned in provincial prisons or district and commune police stations and of those slated to be tried in Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces.
Human Rights Watch urged Cambodia to continue to provide temporary asylum and protection to existing refugees and asylum seekers and to any new asylum seekers from Vietnam. It also called on Cambodian authorities to provide protection to Montagnard asylum seekers found not only well inside Cambodia's boundaries but also upon arrival at the border. Push-backs of Montagnards at the border could amount to a violation of the fundamental principle of refoulement - the obligation of states such as Cambodia, which are signatory to the Refugee Convention, not to return any person to a country where his or her life or freedom may be threatened.
