-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Persecuted Vietnamese win freedom in U.S. 24 Montagnards receive asylum after fleeing to neighboring Cambodia ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By Anthony C. LoBaido © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com As 24 American military personnel were released from captivity in China this week, 24 members of the Montagnard hill tribe of Southeast Asia, long a U.S. anti-communist ally, received their own ticket to freedom. Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department welcomed a step by Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen -- a former leader of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge -- toward the resettlement in America of 24 ethnic minority Montagnards who had fled their homes in Vietnam. The 23 men and one woman were arrested in remote northeastern Cambodia nearly a month ago and have been held at military police headquarters in Phnom Penh since March 24. The decision by the U.S. drew a strong protest from the communist Vietnamese dictatorship. Vietnam called the granting of asylum interference in Vietnam's domestic affairs that would encourage illegal border crossings and regional instability. Why did the 24 Montagnards flee their own nation and travel through jungle, valleys and landmined fields on their way to Cambodia? The Vietnamese government has been persecuting the Montagnards, many of whom are evangelical Christians, for over a quarter century. Vietnamese dissidents in exile have long accused the communist government of brutality repressing Christians and Buddhists, saying hill-tribe people were attacked and tortured to death after recent protests in the Central Highlands. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, Buddhist Hoa Hao, the Catholic Church and Protestants of the Central Highlands have all been repressed by the government. The Buddhist church, banned since 1981, has been severely persecuted. Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang has been detained in his pagoda without trial for 20 years. "Actually, the Vietnamese dictators want the Montagnards trapped inside Vietnam so they can control them and kill them," said Don Scott, who works with the hill tribes of Southeast Asia and acts as the American representative for the exiled anti-communist Prince of Laos. The State Department praised Hun Sen -- whose son graduated from West Point last year. Hun Sen was placed in power by the Vietnamese when they invaded Cambodia on April 17, 1979, to overthrow Pol Pot and his genocidal regime. The U.S. and UK responded by arming the Khmer Rouge cadres in western Cambodia to act as a buffer to keep the Vietnamese from invading Thailand -- a key U.S. and UK ally. By granting asylum to the 24 Montagnards, America's relations with Vietnam could be strained. One of the Clinton administration's last acts in office was to establish formal trade ties with Vietnam's Marxist government. "We ... welcome the decision by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to allow processing for third-country resettlement those persons determined by the U.N. to be refugees," State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, said in a statement. The Vietnamese were livid. "We protest the granting of permission for these people to settle in the United States," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement urging their return to Vietnam. Earlier this week, U.S. ambassador to Cambodia Kent Wiedemann said officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service were due in Phnom Penh to start processing the group for resettlement in the United States. Over 50 members of Congress have signed a letter urging democratic reform in Vietnam. The European Parliament has also pushed the letter, which will be delivered by Buddhist Monks to Vietnam’s communist government. Wiedemann dismissed Hanoi's complaint of interference. "It's a humanitarian issue, not interfering in Vietnam's affairs," he said. "These people came into Cambodia ... and we interviewed them based on the claim that there was a good chance they would face persecution if they returned." As for the Montagnards fleeing Vietnam, they said they fled their homes to escape Vietnam's crackdown on recent unrest. Thousands of ethnic minority farmers took part in anti-government protests in Vietnam in early February, the biggest for years in the communist country. Recently, the Montagnards engaged in a march in Washington, D.C., to call attention to their persecution in Vietnam. Some marchers also demanded that Americans boycott Vietnamese coffee and Nestle products. The latter has ingredients from the communist state. The U.S.-based Montagnard Foundation, which represents the mountain tribes, wants to see trade and foreign aid cut from the Western nations to Vietnam’s regime. Kok Ksor, executive director of the South Carolina-based group, told a working group at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights that his people were executed, arrested and jailed under growing persecution. Three members survived being crucified by Vietnamese authorities in December, but a Montagnard Christian named Y-Jan Eban was tortured to death by electric prods in March, he said. "Right now in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, there are armed soldiers and tanks patrolling our villages all the way from Kontum to Dalat. Helicopters are buzzing our villages and the entire Central Highlands. Our ancestral homelands are under martial law," Ksor said. "In the last eight weeks, hundreds of our people have been attacked, arrested, beaten and tortured with electric prods by Vietnamese authorities. Some of our people have died from torture already." Ksor went on to say that the communist rulers' goal in Vietnam was to "eliminate our race -- not only because we were allied with the Americans but because our homelands have vast forests and natural resources which they want to exploit. I plead to the international community to protect our race and put an end to the last 26 years of genocidal practices. Further, I ask the international community to consider whether they should trade or give aid money to Vietnam, which continues to brutally violate an indigenous race of people." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF!ttp://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ���CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ������������������������rchives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF!ttp://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF!ttp:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ������������������������o subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
