18 March 2004, Spartanburg, South Carolina - For the last 3 years the Vietnamese communist government has maintained the imposition of martial law and repressive paramilitary operations against the Montagnard Degar people who reside in large parts of Vietnams central highlands. The Montagnard Foundation Inc.s (MFI) annual report documents the systematic repression of our indigenous peoples who are persecuted for their Christian faith and for their desire to end the governments repressive policies against them. The report covers in great detail specific human rights violations, which represents just an example of the real situation in the region considering that there is not a free flow of information from the Central Highlands to other parts of Vietnam and to the outside world. The human rights abuses and crimes include: 13 killings and summary executions, hundreds of imprisonments, disappearances and tortures, 3 rapes, thousands of coerced or forced sterilizations, organized religious persecution and the widespread expropriation of the Montagnard peoples ancestral lands.

The Montagnard Degar Peoples are one of the oldest races of indigenous people in South East Asia. However, the last 28 years of persecution by the Communist Government of Vietnam has resulted in our proud peoples being stripped of their ancestral lands while being condemned to a life of poverty. For practicing Christianity our people are severely persecuted, tortured and even murdered by the Vietnamese authorities. Our refugees who try fleeing to Cambodia are being hunted down like animals by Vietnamese po?????A ?º?? lice and army units.

Of urgent concern is that the Vietnamese government has continued to defy the United Nations, namely the 2002 Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee regarding the serious violations (UN doc: CCPR/C/SR.2031) confronting our people (and the several requests made by the European Commission) by refusing international human rights monitors from having access into the Central Highlands.

It is the Montagnard Foundations belief that the ongoing years of repression against our people amounts to an ongoing genocide and we vow to continue the peaceful struggle for our persecuted brothers and sisters inside Vietnam until the Vietnamese government ceases repressing our people for practicing Christianity and that our rights as indigenous people are protected according to international standards, bringing freedom and democracy to all the people who live in Vietnam.

Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation states; The Montagnard Degar people are pleading for international protection and monitoring presence in the central highlands of Vietnam to protect the Montagnard Christians and common villagers who are currently suffering terrible human rights abuses by Vietnams security forces.
 

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