In mid-2002, International Christian Concern
published a report on the persecution of H'mong Christians. The Compass Direct,
a specialized press service, circulated a dozen of reports on the consequences
of the application of the "internal policy" of the Vietnamese
administration against 1.2 million of Evangelical Christians in Vietnam.
Following is the testimony of the missionary Dinh Van Troi, a victim of
religious persecution in the Central Highlands:
"Allow me to sum up certain instances of
misfortune that befell me when I was in prison. My condemnation to prison was a
great honor because I suffered so much with the Lord for this whole period of
time; then, the Lord opened the door, and I I could be liberated from
suffering. During the time of ordeal, I wished to endure all what they had done
against me. I’d better face the cruelty of the police! I preferred to preserve
my faith. I preferred to stay in prison
than revealing to them the things that could produce unfortunate consequences.
I rather die than living a life that would bring me a life without meaning. I
am deprived of my freedom, but they cannot take away the freedom of belief.
In the prison, they said to me: "There is only
the religion of Good News" (Evangelical Christian Church) that is
forbidden by the government and the Party. If you adhere to that religion, you
violate the law." When I asked them to say exactly of what law they spoke,
they threatened me: "The religion of Good News is an American religion, a
religion that opposes the State." I replied: "The religion “Good
News” is the religion of the Lord, of Heaven, it comes from Heaven."
They accused me of calumniating the cadres, opposing
the government, and doing irreparable harm to the society. I sent petitions,
requesting decent treatment of Christians as promised by the government. As I
had not signed in these documents, they accused me of having helped people
write petitions to protest against
injustice. Also, for that reason, persecution against me doubled. The tribunal
ordered that I be detained for two months (from September 23 to November 23, 2000).
Troubles in the
Central Highlands
In February 2001, troubles agitated the population
of the Central Higlands. Y Luyen Niec Dan, the secretary of the provincial
section of the Communist Party in Dak Lak, declared that 11 people, who had
spruced up the demonstrations in the province, were going to be brought to
stand trial before the regional tribunal. The Party secretary added that the
local authorities would execute firm measures right on the spot against
"those who abuse the Protestant faith of the inhabitants in the province
to distort the truth and sabotage the Revolution."
Eyewitnesses to instances o repression recounted that
right in the beginning, chaos spread everywhere in the city. Amid the chanting
slogans of 4,000 Montagnards from different ethnic minorities were shouts of
protest of volunteers who marched thfough the streets of Pleiku . One could
hear cries for "freedom for our religion" voice of protests against State confiscation of “ancestral
lands” and religious repression. Brutal police crackdown on the protesters
ensued. Hundreds of Montagnards were arrested on charges for sabotage of
national security.
The authorities, at the start, hesitated to mention
the religious motivation of the trouble as it could incite anger among the
protesters. The first official public
notices were only published after the re-establishment of order in Pleiku
following February 3 and the end of the protests in Buon Me Thuot and in other
localities of the province
of Dak Lak. The
authorities were pleased to speak of the protests as being motivated by "agrarian problems" and not
because of religious freedom and land claims. They nevertheless pronounced
before the protest was unlatched the arrests of two Montagnards who divulged
rumors damaging public security, and who were released thereafter. An official
notice mentioned the name K’sor Kokthe, director of the “Foundation of Mountaineers,” whose
seat is in Sparttanburg, North
Carolina, U.S.A.,
as the instigator of the riot. This foundation is, in fact, an organization of
the Montagnardes exiles in the United
States. The organization declared that the
two accused in question were the
members of the local Evangelical
Church and that they were
tortured before the release.
On March
7, 2001, an article in the official journal An Ninh (Public Security),
launched attack on the Foundation. The journal situated this group in the line
of the FULRO (Front Unifie pour la Liberation des Races Opprimees), the most
influential movement that were active during many years in the Central Highlands following the change of the
regime in 1975, but was then in abeyance.
The article stressed the role and activities of the
Foundation, mostly relating the connections of the Evangelical missionaries in
the United States with the agitators in the ethnic minorities. In mid-March
2001, the journalist who was authorized to accompany State officials in a tour
in the Central Highlands disclosed that these officials repeatedly stressed
that the the tour had nothing to do with
the religious question. However, in the telegrams to his office, the journalist
jotted down what he had heard from the local inhabitants. The clandestine
Evangelical Churches played an important role in the demonstrations, and
crackdown on the Evangelicals took place.
Some time later, the official press divulged
charges, accusing the domestic Evangelical
Churches and their
protectors abroad of fomenting troubles. It even contended that for a long time
the ideologists of the Party had suspected the Protestant Churches in the Central Highlands of serving as an instrument for the
American strategy of peaceful evolution. In an article of the official journal
Lao Dong (the Worker), on March 28,
2001, the editor enumerated the wrongdoings of trouble makers right
after the events, It made clear that, in a village, these trouble makers forced the
population to bring with them financial contributions to the construction of a
chapel to shelter those who projected to
spread disorder.
As a result, the local authorities conducted a
search-through operation to discover those who were really responsible for the
troubles. A telegram of the AFP of March 19, 2001 cited as proof the declarations of the
chief of the Party Commission for Propaganda, accusing certain foreign
government representatives for having stepped in the Central Highlands
incidents to foment opposition to the State of Montagnards dissidents. Charges against the
clandestine Evangelical congregations and their protectors abroad doubled.
According to official investigations, opposition could hardly take place in the
Central Highlands where poor communication is a serious problem, Only could a
network of clandestine domestic Churches be
efficient and consistent enough to facilitate a movement of protest. To
some observers, the Churches had carefully prepared for the movement in secret, and that surprised everyone. Were the
Christians who were going to serve as scapegoats or were they truly the actors
of this event? Only history can tell.Anyway, they were already the first victims of the
repression. Eleven fomenters were
brought to stand trial before the People’s Court, (EDA 334).
Protests persisted. Harsh condemnations were
pronounced against the leaders of the
movement of protest taking place in February 2001 in the Central High Plands. In April 2001, two months after the demonstrations of the
Montagards, Y Luyen Niec Dam, the secretary of the Party section of the Dak
Lak, declared to execute firm measures against evildoers. The official journal
Tin Tuc, reported that 11 people, who were accused of having fomented
opposition against the State in the recent demonstrations, were going to be
brought to stand trial before the regional People’s Court. Later, in June 2001,
the official press reported that some 40 people were going to be brought before the People’ s Court of Gia
Lai. The process was slow. It was not until the end of September of that year
that the trials could take place. Repressionwas
pervasive in the Central Highlands
To calm down the Evangelical Church, the authorities
came to terms with the leaders. The news of a reconciliation meeting was
announced by the official press on June 19, 2001. For the first time since the official
recognition of the Evangelical Church of South Vietnam on April 3, 2001, a delegation comprising members
of the Executive Board of the Church led by Pastor Pham Thieu paid an official
visit to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. The Vietnamese journal Vietnam News, July 20, 2001, published a
photo of the prime minister with his Evangelical hosts accompanied by the
director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs, Le Quang Vinh. The journal also
reported that Pastor Pham Thieu had made a trip from South Vietnam to Hanoi to greet the prime-minister and
government officials. The two parties exchanged views and agreed on a plan for
unification of the Evangelical
Church. Pastor Pham Thieu
thanked the prime-minister and the government for their support.
In the pasr, there had been assurances. A general
assembly of the Evangelical
Church was scheduled to
take place in the Evangelical
Church at 155 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ho Chi Minh City. February 7-9, 2001. According to Vietnam
News, during the audience, the pastor also expressed wish according to which
"the faithful of his Church will build their religion in line with the
principles of the Evangelical faith, to honor God, the Nation, and the
Fatherland." For his part, the
prime minister spoke of the economic and social development of the country
under “Doi Moi” (Renovation) as projected by the XIth Congress of the Communist
Party of Vietnam, December 1986. He reaffirmed the attachment of the Party and
government to the respect for religious freedom. He hoped to see the believers
and atheists of Vietnam
to cooperate together to forge national unity.
This official meeting between the Christian leaders
and the government was described as “entirely formal” as there had been a certain coolness among the authorities and leaders
of the religion since the creation of the Evangelical Church of South Vietnam
in February 2000. There was nevertheless hope for a move forward in the
relations between the State and the Church, On February 9, 2001, the general assembly of the Evangelical Church elected Pastor Pham Thieu as
President of the Central Executive Committee. According to sources, the
committee considered itself an independent organ. In particular, its president,
Pastor Pham Thieu presented on his own initiatives a program of action for the
four years requiring the authorities to modify their policy with regard to the
Evangelical Church of Vietnam Incidents of unrest nevertheless still unfolded.
On September
27, 2001, it was learned that a trial had
taken place the day before at Buon Me Thuot. At the outset, the
sentences ranging from six to eleven years of imprisonment were given to seven
members of the ethnic minority Ede.
They were charged with crimes of sabotage of national security. No foreign
journalist was admitted to the trial. The official press reported that one of
the convicts was found in possession of arms. The two most harsh sentences, eleven and ten years in
prison, were given to the two militants, Y Nuten Bya and Y Rin Kpa.
The spokesman of the Court declared that this trial
at Buon Me Thout must be the first of a series of others that shoud take place
in Dak Lak and in the neighboring provinces of Gia Lai and Kontum.
Nevertheless, the news agency Reuters cited as proof a source according to
which other analogous trials might have taken place in February and March in
other provinces of the Central Highlands.
On September
28, 2001, seven Montagnards were convicted at a
two-day trial that ended on September 27, 2001 at Pleiku in Gia Lai Province. The convicted were members of
the ethnic minorities Ede
and Bahnar. The leader of the group, “Bom,”
was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The others topped penalties from
six to eleven years in prison. Besides,
the accused, in addition to serving their prison terms, were assigned to
residence surveillance, from three to five years.
The official press sustained the accusations by the
Court, blaming the fomenters in the troubles in the Central Highlands in
February 2001 while attenuating the role played by the religion during the
crisis. As early as April 1991, it still maintained that those fomenters were
the trouble-makers. The cause of demonstration of the Central Highlands thus
became more political than social or religious. Summarizing the trial, the
official daily Nhan Dan, in particular, affirmed that the troubles of February
were led by “the forces hostile to the Vietnamese Revolution.” The hostile group that launched the
demonstrations was supported by the members of the FULRO (Front Unifie pour la
Liberation des Races Opprimees). This organization had struggled beside the
Americans during the Vietnam War, and part of members of this group took refuge
in the United States.
The Montagnards Foundation was cited by name as the key instigator.
These harsh condemnations were only a part of a
press campaign to prepare ground for a political scheme, winning back popular
confidence of the ethnic minorities in the Central
Highlands in the Party. Nong Duc Manh, the Secretary-general of
the Communist Party, who himself a descendant of the ethnic minority of Tay, played a key role, proclaiming himself the head of
this campaign of conquest of mind and heart. At the beginning of September
2001, he met the representatives of 53 different ethnic minorities. He assured
them of social equality between diverse ethnic groups of Vietnam and
this program be carried out in the coming days. In mid-September, he made a
trip of four days in the Central Highlands. While in Kontum and Dak Lak, he
made a long stop at the commune of Poco in the district of Dak To where the inhabitants
of the ethnic Ro Ngao are quasi-totally Catholic. In the province of Gia Lai,
he called on the authorities to rectify the errors they had committed in the
past.
Neither repression nor persuasion occurred until
then. Nevertheless, the promises of the Party Secretary-general made could not
brake the exodus of the Montagnards who crossed the Vietnamese-Kampochean
frontiers to seek refuge in Kampuchea. In
September 2001, there were 67 Rgo crossed the frontier illegally in the hope
that they could seek political asylum in the province of Mondolkiri.
On the whole, since the beginning of the exodus to October 2001, some 503
people, 176 of whom are children, reached Kampuchea, evaded the repression
that was raging the Central Highlands .of Vietnam. At the beginning of the
exodus, the Communist
State was angry to see Kampuchea to
accord the refugee status to the migrants and welcome humanitarian aids from
the United States.
The negotiations for stopping illegal immigrants from Vietnam between
the two neighboring countries came to no result. According to a Kampuchean
source, a Kampuchean delegation came to Hanoi
in the week of October 7-13 to discuss this thorny problem, but still came to
no solution. Evangelicals of ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands endured
so much repression as did their brethren in the North.
A police agent of Kim Tan, Plei Ngo, district of
Azunpa in Kontum, declared to the Christian missionary Ama Bun of the Church of
the people of Jarai in Pleiku: "If we take by chance someone who is
preaching the Gospel, we will cut his ears and fine him an amend of f$VN 2
million “dong.” The president of the People's Council of the commune of Kim
Tan, district of Azunpa declared: "Whoever wants to adhere to the religion
of Gospel has to give to the government a cow and 500,000 $VN dong.” Nevertheless, “the believers still have faith
in the Lord.” (The Commission of Religious Freedom of World Evangelical Union in Singapore
in February 2000. (EDA May 2000).
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