Bond Between US, VN Highlanders Forged During War
The offer by the US Embassy in Phnom Penh
Monday to resettle 24 ethnic minority members from Vietnam's restive
Central Highlands might be an act of international humanitarianism
toward fleeing refugees.
But the resettlement offer is not a first for the US. And it
brings into focus a close relationship now stretching over four
decades between the US government and Vietnam's Montagnard
communities, whose members were once the US's most capable fighters
during the war in Vietnam.
Some in these communities were still resisting Hanoi from the
Cambodian jungles until as recently as 1992, when about 400
Montagnards were given political asylum and relocated to the US
state of North Carolina.
Montagnards comprise ethnic minorities from Vietnam's Central
Highlands, Which stretch from Kontum in the northern highlands to
Dalat in the south, skirting Cambodia's border provinces form Stung
Treng through Ratanakkiri to Monodolkiri.
Culturally and ethnically different from Vietnamese, Montagnard
communities fought with the French colonial administration against
the Vietminh in the 1940s. The Montagnards' alignment with the
French was repaid with the granting of a level of political autonomy
in the Central Highlands. But following the Geneva Accords in 1954
and the withdrawal of the French from Vietnam, the Montagnards lost
their political privileges.
When the US Entered the war in Vietnam, the Montagnards were sought
out for their jungle survival skills in the strategically important
Central Highlands, which split Vietnam's warring north and south.
Trained by the US Army Special Forces, the Montagnards were renowned
for their fighting ability until the defeat of South Vietnam in
April 1975.
Fearing retribution as allies of the US, groups of Montagnards fled
into the mountainous jungles areas of the Central Highlands and
Cambodian border joined the resistance movement FULRO a French
acronym for the United Frond for the Liberation of Oppressed Races.
FULRO continued to fight the North Vietnamese Army and the Hanoi
government until the early 1990s. According to a 1998 US State
Department report, 201 Montagnards made their way to the
Thai-Cambodian border in 1985 and were processed by the US
government for resettlement in North Carolina a year later.
In Sept 1992, an additional 398 Motagnard resistance fighters still
armed with AK 47s and other equipment were discovered by
Paraguayan UN peace keepers serving with Untac in a remote region
of Mondolkiri province.
The US moved quickly to airlift the group from Mondolkiri to Phnom
Penh, where they were kept at an interim camp on the outskirts of
the city for one month before their resettlement in the countries of
Guilford, Wake and Mecklenberg in the US state of North Carolina.
A spokesman for the local human rights group Adhoc who remembers the
1992 resettlement of the 400 noted Tuesday the difference in how the
government is dealing with the current group of 24 detainees, In
1992 Cambodia was by Untac and international obligation to the 400
were honored, he said. Government statements that it must now
balance the consideration of international law with that of its
neighbors interests should not influence decisions toward refugees
fleeing persecution, he said.
While membership in Asean weighs heavily on Cambodia, other members
have not shirked their responsibilities to refugees, he added.
" Thailand always received the refugees from Cambodia, Laos,
Burma and Vietnam, and it is a member of Asean also.
This is a humanitarian issue. Not a political issue between
neighbors, " he said.
A military police official charged with taking care of the
Headquarters in Phnom Penh said Tuesday that following private
interviews on Monday with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the
detainees' spirits have improved markedly.
"They are smiling, talking and are very happy among themselves.
We don't know what they are saying, but they are very happy,
"the officials said. (by
Thet Sambath) |
