WITNESS ACCOUNTS
The following eyewitness accounts were obtained from a variety of sources, including people living near Site 1, relief workers who were inside and outside Site 1, and the deportees themselves, some of whom were in telephone contact with human rights monitors during the deportation.
Witness One
Around 4:30 am I could hear the Montagnards singing hymns inside the house. By 5:30 police had set up roadblocks and sealed off the entire area. They would not allow reporters or human rights monitors to get close. Most of the Montagnards had assembled in the downstairs courtyard, where they were sitting down. At 6 am, I could see the different types of security forces as they entered the compound and how they were armed. The Montagnards remained seated, huddled in a group. As the police began to seize people to drag them out, I heard a tremendous crying and wailing break out. The police began to randomly hit seated Montagnards with batons. A second group of riot police marched in, with automatic rifles slung over shoulders, and set upon them with electric batons. Panic broke out and the shrieking got even louder. I saw Montagnards being chased by police as they fled to the back of the shelter and upstairs. Some scampered up on the roof of the shelter (and one nearly slipped off) before being ordered down by police. Eventually everyone was dragged or led out of the shelter and onto two buses. By 6 pm the buses, escorted by several truckloads of riot police, drove off.
Witness Two
The Montagnards were completely non-violent. Some were gathered in a group and began to pray and then a terrible sound of lamentation and wailing came. Some moved forward and sat clinging to one another, crying. They did not move when the police wanted them to go onto the bus. Police pulled one man out in front and beat him as he was lying on the cement. He writhed when he was stuck with a baton. More people were beaten and dragged or carried out the gate. I saw a policeman kick one woman in the stomach.
Police in white helmets arrived carrying large black batons, which they beat people with. Some people were kicked. Another set of police arrived wearing green helmets and carrying electric batons. I saw the lights flashing on the electric batons and I saw people groaning with pain when they were struck. When they struck a woman with a child on her back, I yelled "Stop them! Stop them!" A UNHCR staff person called out, "No weapons!" The police continued to beat and drag people and the electric prod lights flashed. I yelled "Torture!"
One woman was mistakenly dragged and beaten despite appealing several times that she was not supposed to be deported. Two children, her nieces, were watching from the upstairs balcony as she was beaten and dragged to the bus. She and her children were extremely traumatized. She was eventually removed from the bus.
When a second bus came to take people, some of the Montagnards hid upstairs and were beaten. Some were on the roof. I saw police running after some people who had run upstairs. The police were pushing them down [stairs]. At this point some began coming down voluntarily and got on the bus, although they were crying as they walked.
The behavior of the police was not acceptable. The Montagnards were not violent.
Witness Three
I saw the Montagnards sitting clinging together on the floor, wailing. The police grabbed one man and he would not move, so five police moved in to forcibly move him. They beat him with their hands and kicked him. They used an electric shock baton on him and he writhed in pain and his head banged on the cement. It seemed he became unconscious. Four police lifted him onto the bus. On the way out, his head banged against the gate. When the police threw the man onto the bus, two lines of police formed a protective barrier from the gate to the buses. Then I saw the police with black batons hitting the group.
Other police had batons with batteries in them which they used to shock people. Some police had big guns and pistols. I saw police hit a woman with a baby strapped on her back. It was like a war. The Montagnards did not fight. The main group just sat there, clinging to one another, wailing. Some refugees ran upstairs and the police ran after them.
Witness Four
I heard the cries and saw the police push and drag the Montagnards onto the bus. I saw a policeman beating one man with his hands and another officer hitting a man who was hanging onto his wife and brother. I followed them to the bus. When they got on the bus, the policeman kicked the second man. One woman had asked me to get her things. When I went upstairs, I saw police all over the place looking for people. I took the woman's things to the bus, but the police would not let me go back inside to get the clothes of others.
Witness Five
I saw Montagnards sitting on the floor clung together in a group. Many were crying and wailing in grief. Ordinary police were surrounding the first row of Montagnards, and began trying to drag people out from the group. Four police dragged one man out. He suddenly dropped to the floor and banged his head on the stone, before being dragged away. The police tried to drag more away but this was difficult as they were so tightly clung together. The ordinary police then stepped back and made way for a force in white helmets, who walked up carrying big black sticks. These police began beating into the first row of refugees with their sticks. There was then a call for "NO weapons!" I saw three refugees, including one woman, being dragged out by their legs and in other ways. As one man was dragged out, his wife followed him carrying a baby and screaming. One man was crying and screaming as he was carried out by four officers. I saw two lines of men in camouflage uniforms and small green helmets come into the site. I heard the sound of electric batons and turned to see two of these men holding batons in the air and turning them on. One put his baton on the arm of a refugee, who immediately jolted back. Panic then followed, with refugees running in all directions, and into the house. Police came out of the house escorting people. Many of the refugees started to come out of the house still crying and wailing but they did not have to be forced by the police to board the buses.
One woman signaled to me to get her things from the house so I ran upstairs to her room out the back and found two policemen in there searching through her things. They left when they saw me. I grabbed two bags and some clothes and ran back down to the bus to put them on board. I then saw a big group shouting to me, telling me that one lady was not supposed to be on the bus. She was then removed from the bus.
Witness Six
At 5:55 the police entered the gate. The people sat down on the ground floor and were praying when the police came in. people were screaming, crying. The people held hands together. The police beat people. They hit people on their hands to try to get them to let go of each other. Then they used batons to shock people. Some people ran upstairs, some ran into their rooms, some went on the roof. The police went into each room. We saw police beating people upstairs. Four people were beaten so badly that they could not go down the stairs by themselves. People were put onto two buses. The people were crying when they were in the bus.
Witness Seven
We are sad to describe the circumstances this morning which caused us great grief. To the Christians in [Site 1], the grief was immeasurable. The government had ordered them sent back to Vietnam, for reasons that remain unclear. Before breakfast, the sound of wailing was taken up. Such a cry of pain and grief I had never heard before and hope to never hear again. The whole house was wailing in protestation against being extradited to Vietnam. You could hear the terror in their cries. I saw men and women being carried or dragged out to the trucks and buses waiting to taken them away. One woman was dragged by her hair. It was a dreadful, sad scene. It is unimaginable what they face at the end of their journey.
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
4:30 am: Montagnards in Site 1 camp are heard singing hymns and praying.
5:30 am: Police blockade the street in front of Site 1. Journalists are sent away.
5:49 am: UNHCR vehicle spotted in front of Site 1.
6:00 am: Large group of Montagnards can be seen sitting down in the front courtyard of Site 1. Witnesses later say they were conducting a prayer meeting.
Police escort cars and two trucks of intervention police (wearing white helmets, carrying wooden batons; some with AK-47 rifles over their shoulders) arrive at the site, along with two buses. Trucks of another type of intervention police (wearing green helmets and camouflage uniforms, carrying electric shock batons) arrive minutes later.
6:07 am: Monitors from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights arrive but are denied access to Site 1 and, along with journalists, are kept 300 meters away.
6:10 am: Loud screaming and wailing is heard from Site 1 as regular police (primarily those regularly assigned to guard the five UNHCR sites) begin to order people to get on the buses. No one responds or steps forward, so police then start to beat and drag people out, one by one. They drag people by their arms and then use more force, dragging one man by his feet to the bus as the other Montagnards cry out and wail. The remaining Montagnards remain seated; holding on to each other and locking arms.
Thirty to forty intervention police in white helmets, carrying black batons and some with rifles slung over their shoulders, enter the site. They begin to indiscriminately beat Montagnards, who continue to remain seated. Most of the regular policemen move back at this point, although some of them can be seen kicking people or beating them on their hands, to make them break their grip with other Montagnards. Police officers kick at least one woman in the stomach.
The second unit of Intervention Police, wearing green army-style helmets and camouflage uniforms, enters the site and begins beating Montagnards with electric shock batons. Most of those they shock are the people still seated in the front of the group, who recoil in pain.
Panic ensues, and many people try to flee to the back of the shelter or upstairs. The police chase them up the stairs, entering each room.
Police drag or push more Montagnards onto the first bus. Police pull up the shirts of several of the Montagnards and quickly shock them on their backs as they near the buses. Others are kicked or beaten while inside the buses. Three Montagnards are seeing climbing up on the roof of Site 1. The police race to the adjoining lot, to make sure that no one escapes, while other police shout at the Montagnards on the roof and force them to come down. Witnesses report that police beat many of the Montagnards who were upstairs.
Escorted by police, this second group of Montagnards walk out of the shelter to the second bus, crying, screaming, and clinging to relief workers as they go.
6:40 am: All 101 Montagnards have been loaded in the two buses. One woman who was mistakenly loaded on one of the buses is taken off (she is a member of a family of six that was allowed to stay behind because of a newborn baby). Security forces prepare to move out.
6:50 am: Convoy leaves.
7:20 am: Reports are received of problems in Site 2 and Site 4 camps, where Montagnard refugees try to leave the shelters to show solidarity with the Montagnards who have just been deported. Police surround the camps and push the Montagnards back into the facilities. No violence or injuries are reported.
10:20 am: The convoy of returnees crosses the border to Vietnam. Seven of the Montagnards are sent back to Phnom Penh, after being rejected by Vietnamese government officials, who state that the seven are Cambodian nationals, not Vietnamese.
