07/20/2005

Contacts: Lionel Rosenblatt and Sayre Nyce
ri@refugeesinternational.org or 202.828.0110


This morning 100 Montagnards in Cambodia were forcefully returned to Vietnam, where they believe they face a high risk of persecution. Cambodian police, using electric batons, pushed men, women and children onto buses, which hauled them off to Vietnam, where they may face arrest and other abuse. Although the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determined that these individuals did not meet the requirements for refugee status, international agencies have been calling for a re-screening. Refugees International believes that many of these Montagnards have legitimate fears of being persecuted in Vietnam and should have received refugee status, thereby permitting them to remain in Cambodia or be resettled to another country.

The group which was sent back today was part of approximately 700 Montagnards who fled from the Central Highlands in Vietnam to Cambodia in 2004. This ethnic minority is subject to harassment, land confiscation and other forms of discrimination. Vietnamese authorities have severely limited their Christian religious practices. Many Montagnards assisted the U.S. during the Vietnam War and thousands of them have previously been brought to live in the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. Government had offered to consider resettling the screened-out Montagnards as well, but the July 20 repatriation precluded this.

Advocacy and human rights organizations are concerned about the treatment these people may receive now that they have been deported. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of arrest and beatings of Montagnards who returned to Vietnam in recent months. Although the Government of Vietnam has made a commitment to allow a Vietnamese staff person of UNHCR to monitor the return to the Central Highlands, there is no guarantee that UNHCR will get the access needed to interview the returnees independently and gauge how they are being treated. Experience suggests that any UNHCR contact with the returnees will be closely monitored by the Vietnamese authorities.

Cambodian authorities limited or prohibited journalists and human rights workers from monitoring the return today, and access in Vietnam continues to be problematic. International agencies must be allowed access to the Montagnards both in Cambodia and Vietnam to ensure that receive the protection afforded to them by the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Refugees International therefore recommends that:

• UNHCR and human rights organizations be permitted to monitor the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.


• UNHCR, human rights organizations and the U.S. Government be allowed unfettered access to the Central Highlands to monitor and interview returnees.


Refugees International president emeritus Lionel Rosenblatt recently surveyed Montagnard conditions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.