Report Reveals
Vietnam's Decades-Long Crackdown on Minority Christians
Wesley Ernst
Christian Post Correspondent
Saturday, Apr. 2, 2011
Vietnam’s
communist government continues committing gross acts of repression against
indigenous Christian minorities living in the country’s Central Highlands, Human
Rights Watch (HRW) reported Thursday.
The organisation reported Hanoi’s decades-long brutality directed at the
Montagnard tribes, whose members are predominantly evangelical Protestant or
Catholic.
“Montagnards face harsh persecution in Vietnam, particularly those who worship
in independent house churches, because the authorities don’t tolerate religious
activity outside their sight or control,” said Phil Robertson, HRW deputy Asia
director, according to The New York Times. “The Vietnamese government has been
steadily tightening the screws on independent Montagnard religious groups,
claiming they are using religion to incite unrest.”
Traditionally animalist, Montagnards later converted to Christianity in large
numbers – first with the French Catholic missionaries in the 19th century, then
with U.S. Protestants in the 1950s thru 60s. The Americans made a more lasting
impact as most Montagnards currently are Protestants.
Fiercely independent, the highland Christians often meet clandestinely in house
churches that are outside government supervision. Many distrust the Southern
Evangelical Church of Vietnam (SECV), the state-authorised Protestant church in
the Central Highlands.
The main authority in Hanoi has actively attempted to stamp out house churches
by deploying specialised paramilitary units to assist provincial policemen, who
routinely conduct arbitrary arrests. Officials often stage communal struggle
sessions to humiliate and coerce Christians into renouncing their faith.
Under Vietnamese laws governing religion, the freedom to worship is seen as a
privilege instead of a fundamental human right.
The atheist communist government started allowing religious practices in the
early 1990s, but only for groups that had registered with authorities. Even so,
authorised groups had to operate under official guidelines. Though the
government had approved some evangelical Protestant churches in the last decade,
virtually none of the 400 highland churches were recognised.
Decades of Ethnic Tension and Intolerance
The HRW report on Thursday reveals centuries-old mistrust and prejudices between
Montagnards and majority lowland Vietnamese.
The communist government reserves long-standing enmity for Montagnards, who had
fought alongside U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War.
After the communist victory in 1975, Catholic and Protestant churches in the
highlands were forcibly closed and many tribesmen, including pastors, were
arrested in retribution.
Tens of thousands of highlanders went into hiding or fled to neighbouring
Cambodia. Others formed the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO),
a ragtag army that fought the communists without American support throughout the
1980s thru early 1990s. By 1992, the last of the guerillas were evacuated by
U.N. peacekeeping troops.
Although having long since
abandoned armed resistance, Montagnards continue facing pressures including
losing ancestral farmland to encroaching lowland settlers and agricultural
plantations. This fueled resentment that led to mass protests. At the centre of
the unrest, an activist Montagnard church movement - Tin Lanh Dega or Dega
Protestantism – emerged to champion for land rights.
In February 2001, thousands of Montagnards in the four Central Highland
provinces staged an unprecedented mass protest demanding religious freedom and
return of confiscated land. In the consequent crackdown, police and military
units sealed off provincial borders and arrested scores of demonstrators. Many
were tortured into making false confessions, while dozens were imprisoned. By
the following year, over a thousand Montagnards had fled to Cambodia.
Since then, authorities continually allege that FULRO elements are in collusion
with unregistered churches such as those with Dega Protestants. While no
evidence suggests that armed anti-government groups exist in the Central
Highlands, Hanoi does not trust unregistered Montagnard Christians.
Claiming to improve political stability and security in the region, the police
have over the years launched a systematic campaign to shut down unofficial house
churches and arrest its members. Individuals are often forced into either making
false confessions or renouncing their faith in staged struggle meetings with
villagers.
Reports of repression of Montagnards conflict with Hanoi promises to improve
religious freedom in its bid to join the World Trade Organisation, which
requires the country to remove itself from the U.S.’s “country of particular
concern” list.
The United States had previously designated Vietnam as a “country of particular
concern” (CPC) for religious freedom in 2004, but removed it from the list two
years later. However, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
repeatedly recommends Vietnam be placed back on the CPC list in light of reports
revealing human rights violation in the communist nation.