By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife
HANOI, VIETNAM (BosNewsLife)– Vietnamese security forces beheaded pastors and shot to death “many” other Hmong Christians who gathered to await Jesus Christ’s return after a false prophecy by an American preacher, according to a leading advocacy group’s leader.
James Jacob Prasch, executive director of Moriel Ministries (MM), said Thursday, July 14, that the massacre was the horrific aftermath of shortwave broadcasts by Harold Camping of California-based Family Radio.
Camping, 89, claimed that Christ would return to Earth to “rapture” his followers to heaven on May 21 as mankind had run out of time.
Following the broadcasts, some 7,000 Hmong Christians attempted to gather “on a mountain praising God” in late April and early May, but instead found “police and military police” who slaughtered “many of them at gunpoint beheading two pastors,” Prasch told supporters in an electronic message to supporters obtained by BosNewsLife.
International rights activists had suggested that dozens of Hmong Christians may have been killed, but Prasch suggested the real figure may be higher. “I am told by Hmong pastors that so many were shot dead that they were buried in mass graves bulldozed over,” he added. Others were reportedly detained.
“SABOTAGE FORCES”
Vietnamese officials in Dien Bien province have accused ‘sabotage forces’ of stoking secessionist demands, and denied reports of a massacre.
A spokeswoman from the Foreign Ministry said ‘extremists’ had been detained but did not say how many or whether anyone had been killed or injured. Foreign media and diplomats have been banned from visiting the area.
Dien Bien is one of Vietnam’s poorest provinces in the remote and mountainous area bordering Laos and China, where there have been widespread reports of a government crackdown on Christian Hmongs.
Across the border in Laos, Laotian and Vietnamese troops killed four Hmong Christian women after confiscating their Bible, a US rights group said in April.
“SUMMARILY EXECUTED”
The Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA) said the unarmed highland Hmong women were “summarily executed” in northeastern Xieng Khouang province by soldiers from a special 150-member unit of the Lao People’s Army (LPA) led by Vietnamese secret police and military advisers.
The government troops confiscated the group’s only Bible, “brutally and repeatedly raped” at least two of the younger women before shooting them at point blank range with automatic weapons in the head and torso, it added.
Laos and Vietnam have close military ties in the mountainous region.
In Vietnam’s Dien Bien province the 170,000 Hmong represent about one-third of its population. The Hmong make up just over 1 per cent of the wider Vietnamese population, but many reportedly earn as little as 100 dollars a year, less than a tenth of the average annual income.
LONG HISTORY
Christians say there is a long history of mistrust between the government and many ethnic hilltribe groups, collectively known as Montagnards, as many of them were allied with the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War.
Prasch said he was outraged that American preacher Camping misused their situation to make false prophecies, giving them false hopes that their promised land was imminent.
“Due to a combination of poverty, ignorance, and persecution these poor Christians don’t understand much so they believed Camping’s shortwave broadcast,” added Prasch. “This is a persecuted church who just had no means to know any different. This is why I get angry at those who deceive the Body of Christ and why I warn so much about false teachers and false prophets.”
There was no comment from Family Radio. (With additional reporting by BosNewsLife’s Eric Leijenaar)
Hmong – no problem.
Dear Jon Lotaj,
Strange reaction after the above article.
Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife
Family Radio (FR) must be held accountable for their heresy of date setting. These Hmong people have been persecuted enough. Family Radio is still perpetuating Camping’s lies by now setting another date of October 21. They will no doubt continue to broadcast this through their mindless minions who have now begun to teach on FR in place of Camping who is in a nursing home. FR has a strong hatred for churches and will do what they can to continue destroying them. There should be no attention paid to their broadcasts. They are almost broke anyway and mybe they will just fade away. These heresies of Camping have been going on since he predicted the end in 1994. He has twelve wrong dates to his discredit and October 21 will be number 13. It is better if the brethren in Vietnam listen to Far East Broadcasting or Trans World Radio rather than the ranting of a deluded false prophet and yet so many in the USA are still clinging to Camping and his deceptions. God truly has begun to separate the wheat from the tares.
this is the reason why my cousin made his son in law denounced his christian faith before he allowed his daughter to marry him… they lived in the hills of laungprabang in laos, close to the boarder of vietnam….. my cousin called and spoke to my mom what to do, my mom told him being a christian is a good thing but we later found out he made the son in law signed a paper to denounce his faith because my cousin fear that they will be persecute and killed.
That’s why we Hmong people need to rise up and fight these kinds of evil in the world. If we show the Vietnamese our unity and financial power, they will fear us. We live in the most prosperous nation on earth and we do nothing to help our Hmong people. We must combine our education and financial to combat this evil–our generation must stop this madness. For forty plus years, the Vietnamese has done nothing but hunt us like animals. It’s time we strike back.
Read this story closer and dig more deeply into the facts… Harold Camping/Family Radio had nothing to do with this, as these poor people were not followers of Family Radio. As a false prophet himself, and a jealously obsessed professional Family Radio bash-er (for years) , “Dr.” Ken Matto KNOWS this.
For more of KEN Matto’s false doctrines and hate spewing self-piousness, please visit the Yahoo Group ‘Family Radio Listeners.’
To Kevin: I can guarantee that is not your real name because Campingites fear to be known. I have fought against the lies and deceptions of Camping and his mindlesss minions for 10 years and I make no apologies for it. This is just another spin doctor of Camping’s. Let the people decide to see if it is Family Radio Bashing or if it is legitimate challenges to Camping’s blasphemies – http://www.scionofzion.com/depart_out.htm
I can’t believe I’m reading this utter bullshit of who’s at fault in the comment section. There is no scape goat only that most people don’t know this has been going on for years. The communist parties fear of higher influence that might cause irrationational uprisings. Harold Camping is just another cult leader and leading a bunch of people to empty promises. Please do not compare all christians to one type of idiotic descriminatory group of people. All religions are the same, they all seek one answer and one way to life. It’s just stupid how one group believes they are right over the other just like how i’m reading the comment section trying to find a scape goat. Go do something about it instead of BSing on here if you care so much as you say you do.
I have to said Kevin is right about one thing this have nothing to do with Harold Camping/Family Radio. The true is Vietnamese and Laos are on one side they both use the same military. They dont like it when hmong Christian from USA go in convert this hilltribe people into christian. We must look into the fact Who from USA go into vietnam and go visit the hilltribe people then we know the true. For so long no one in this hilltribe area know about Jesus. So there must be somebody that go there and spread the words.
I am Hmong and I pray one day the leader of this military police (Vietnamese security forces) will be brought to justice and shot them at point blank. The killing and raped were crimes against humanity and where is the UN and USA stands on this subject? I guess we have no oil in the far East. That Harold camping is the devil himself, and I hope he goes to hell before or on October 21, 2011.
To Jon Lojat,
Don’t blame the action of one against all Hmong!
Jon Lotaj why u sad that Hmong – no problem. I know that hmong have problem
can i go look this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHerGolvR0&feature=related