DESPERATE FOR FREEDOM, VIETNAMES REFUGEES MAKE BRAVE BREAKS FOR CAMBODIA

August 26, 2004 - (AFP) Ksor Huaih, one of hundreds of despairing Vietnamese Montagnards escaping a repressive government, carried just the clothes on his back and some dried food when he left on his trek to Cambodia.

Braving malaria-infested jungles, Vietnamese police and pounding monsoon rains, Huaih and his entire village of 24 fled grinding poverty and tight restrictions over their daily lives for the unknown early this month.

"We walked for four days to reach the border and we dared not stop or sleep at all. The way was very slippery and it rained continuously," Huaih told AFP in this northeastern town, where he eventually made contact with the United Nations refugee agency.

"We kept our ears open all those days, afraid even of an animal's footstep. My mouth kept moving and praying not to be found by Vietnamese police," the 42-year-old farmer said through an interpreter.

"It was very scary. If I had been caught, I would have died."

Another who made an escape across the border described her plight in Vietnam as "like living in hell."

Ethnic minorities in Vietnam's Central Highlands are rebelling again, pushed to their limits by a government that has confiscated their ancestral lands and banned them from practising their Christian religion.

The fact that many Montagnards, as they are commonly known, helped the US military fight the communists during the Vietnam War has long made them a despised group, they say.

In April, hundreds staged major demonstrations in Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Lam Dong provinces, which were brutally crushed by security forces. Rights groups say 10 were killed, but the Vietnamese government puts the toll at two and insists there is no need for the hilltribe people to leave.

But the crackdown triggered an exodus of refugees into Cambodia, which at first stepped up security along its border to prevent their entry. At least 256 have made it across the border safely and are under UN protection.

The latest influx is the largest since February 2001, when Vietnamese forces broke up similar protests by around 20,000 Montagnards. Some 1,000 refugees were resettled in the United States the following year.

A steady stream of Montagnards has trickled into Cambodia since then and shows no sign of abating. It is likely to be an ongoing irritant to Cambodia's relations with its more powerful neighbour.

Cambodia has already come under fire from critics who say it failed to act to help the refugees because it feared upsetting Vietnam, and interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak admitted this was an issue.

"We would like this (stream of refugees) to finish soon as we still want to keep our friendship with the Vietnamese," he told AFP, adding however that the government will permit the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to keep processing the asylum-seekers.

Huaih insists he did not take part in the April protests, but said that after his small plot of land was taken from him, he could no longer stand living in Vietnam.

"Vietnam has oppressed and crushed me too much. They took all the land I had for growing coffee and jackfruit and stopped me from following my religion."

Rolan Min, 32, made her escape with Huaih's group and told AFP she also left because of conditions she could no longer endure.

 The government "took all our land, asked us to pay high taxes and prohibited us from praying. We couldn't bear it. It was like living in hell," she said.
"I am a Christian and I want peace. There's no peace in my village so I needed to leave it."

Like Huaih, she scrabbled through the jungle, scratching herself on thorns and unforgiving grasses as she hiked for her life to Cambodia.

"It really hurt but at the time I didn't actually feel it -- my fear was greater than my hurt," she said.

The two asylum-seekers were among a batch of refugees airlifted by the UNHCR at the weekend to Phnom Penh, where they will have their claims for asylum assessed.

"I don't really care if I get to the United States or not -- as long as I can escape that brutal country, that's enough."

From: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040826/lf_afp/cambodia_vietnam_040826153742