Posted on 06/04/2002 6:04:14 PM PDT by Libloather
Vietnam Tribal Refugees Head to U.S.
Mon Jun 3, 6:17 PM ET
By CHRIS DECHERD, Associated Press Writer
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The first of more than 900 ethnic hill tribe refugees from Vietnam departed Cambodia on Monday for resettlement in the United States, the last stage of a yearlong quest for freedom.
Fifty people from the hill tribes of Vietnam's Central Highlands left on a commercial flight for Bangkok en route to Los Angeles.
Virtually all of them will eventually be resettled in four cities in North Carolina, said Mohammad Alnassery, acting chief of mission in Cambodia for the U.N.-affiliated International Organization for Migration.
The refugees fled to Cambodia in February 2001 after Vietnamese authorities crushed rare anti-government demonstrations last year in the Central Highlands. Vietnam's hill tribe people, collectively known as Montagnards, claim they were stripped of their farmland, persecuted for their Christian faith and faced systematic discrimination by Vietnamese authorities.
Vietnam has denied the allegations, claiming that "outside forces" were causing unrest in the highlands.
However, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch backed the allegations of abuse by the Montagnards, who have been viewed with suspicion by Hanoi because of their role assisting the U.S. military against the communists in the Vietnam war during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Three or four times a week until mid-July, groups of 50 Montagnards will board commercial flights out of Cambodia, Alnassery said.
Most of them have relatives in the United States who will help them adapt from a simple, agrarian way of living to the paved roads and shopping malls of suburban America, Alnassery said.
"They are quite eager to go to the U.S.," he said. "From what I understand, most have established connections with second cousins and relatives and that is encouraging to them."
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed to allow the asylum seekers to resettle in the United States after pressure from Washington and human rights groups. But he closed the refugee camps and announced that any more Montagnards found in Cambodia would be sent back to Vietnam as illegal border crossers.
Vietnam's Ambassador to Cambodia Nguyen Duy Hung acknowledged Monday that his government initially opposed the resettlement but eventually agreed with Cambodia "that this was a special case for resettlement and that the camps would be closed and that there'd be no more refugees."
In Washington, the State Department urged Cambodia to continue to allow the Montagnards to resettle.
"We certainly welcome the commitment of the Cambodian government to this humanitarian resettlement effort, and appreciate their living up to the international obligations to offer, first, asylum, and trust that they will continue to support that policy," said spokesman Philip Reeker.
Since moving from their camps near the border two months ago, the refugees have been living under the care of the United Nations (news - web sites) in an abandoned garment factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
Six of the Montagnards will be resettled in the Seattle area where they have family. The rest will go to the North Carolina cities of Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro and New Bern, said Carl Regan of the Save the Montagnard People organization, which is assisting the refugees here.
About 3,000 Montagnards live in North Carolina.
Freeper Alert: Sen. KERRY / Communist Vietnamese Killing Off Christains in Central Highlands...
Agreed, I welcome these honorable people to America!
Small down payment on a debt of honor.
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