country’s accession to the World Trade Organization, representatives of jailed, predominantly Christian, Montagnard Degar people urged them not to overlook human rights.
In a letter to the US delegation obtained by BosNewsLife, the president of the US-based Montagnard Foundation Incorporated (MFI), Kok Ksor, said he was concerned about the plight of hundreds of prisoners arrested during pro-democracy demonstrations in 2001 and 2004.
"With this letter I wish to respectfully request if you can use your influence in the US Trade Office to help secure the release of all our Montagnard prisoners," he wrote to Ambassador Rob Portman, and Trade Assistants Dorothy Dwoskin and Barbara Weisel.
"Our people merely want freedom from being repressed and thus we respectfully ask that the fate of our over 300 prisoners and the ongoing persecution against our people be raised with Vietnam in your discussions. We would like our prisoners of conscience to be released before Vietnam be granted such status with the World Trade Organization," he added.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
There was no immediate reaction from US officials, although Washington has expressed concern over reports of violations of human rights of Christians and other minorities.
The Degar, referred to by French colonists as Montagnard or "mountain people" are the indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands, but have been accused by Communist authorities of following "an American religion" and of cooperating with American troops during the Vietnam War.
About 40,000 Montagnard Degar people fought with the US military, but the "religious, social and political oppression" they endured increased after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, said MFI, which also operates inside Vietnam.
TURTURE AND INTIMIDATION
More recently "both in 2001 and on Easter 2004 the largely peaceful demonstrations (for more rights), carried out by the Montagnard Degar people, in coordination with the Montagnard Foundation have been followed by a crackdown of the Vietnamese authorities and deployment of security forces in the Central highlands," Ksor added in his letter.
He claimed that security forces "killed many of our people and conducted a widespread campaign of arrests, tortures and intimidation that is far from over." Since last month reporters emerged that Vietnamese security forces occupied several Christian villages and that dozens of people were detained and tortured.
The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry had denied these kind of accusations.
"The Vietnamese government always espects and protects human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of press and freedom of religion and beliefs," said the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Dzung when asked by reporters about persecution claims in a recent statement. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reports from Vietnam)
