An ongoing campaign of repression against Vietnam's Montagnard Christians is spurring a new wave of criticism about the Southeast Asian country's human-rights record from area refugees and some Vietnam War veterans.
News of a continuing crackdown against Vietnam's Central Highland minority worries Montagnard Christian refugees living in the United States. The mistreatment of these people has been a concern for more than two decades for those with relatives there, and for American veterans who were helped by the Montagnards during the Vietnam War.
"It has never surfaced to the conscience of the whole world," said Tom Ha, a community activist and a member of the Vietnamese-American community in Tarrant County, Texas.
"We really want the government to leave these people alone and grant them religious freedom, but right now it is only a dream," said Ha, who is not a Montagnard.
Tribes living in the Central Highlands came to be known as Montagnards when Vietnam was under French control.
About 4,000 Montagnards live in North Carolina, and there are smaller communities in Texas and Washington state.
Vietnam recently announced that it has sentenced leaders of the Montagnards to long prison terms. Eight men were found guilty of organizing illegal migration to Cambodia and undermining communist policy, according to The New York Times.
Human Rights Watch reported in September that the government was targeting Protestant church leaders, land-rights advocates and people suspected of guiding asylum-seekers to Cambodia.
The group reported that unrest in the Central Highlands began in early 2001, when thousands of indigenous highlanders demonstrated in favor of land rights and religious freedom.
While the latest news is worrisome to area Vietnamese residents, some say it might help bring more attention to the struggles of these people.
"The Montagnards have no right to live, have no land for farming, no place to live and no church to worship God," said Rong Nay, who has testified before Congress on this issue.
Nay, who is the executive director of the Montagnard Human Rights Organization, based in North Carolina, said Vietnam's communist government has mistreated the Montagnards because they are viewed as allies of the West. They cannot practice their ethnic traditions or Christian religion, or keep their property.
"We don't know how many Montagnards are dead, missing or in jail," Nay said.
Many of them fought alongside the French, the Americans and the South Vietnamese against the North's communist regime, said Nay, a Montagnard refugee who fought in a resistance movement.
Michael Benge, a senior adviser to Nay's human-rights group, said that without the sacrifice of the Montagnards, thousands more American names would be on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
"They gave their lives up. For us to abandon our allies like this is unconscionable," he said.
Nay is among those who want the United States to pressure the government in Hanoi to respect the rights of the Montagnards and impose economic sanctions on the communist nation if it doesn't comply. There are efforts to lobby Congress to pass a Vietnam Human Rights Act.
Relatives in the United States have problems getting accurate accounts of what's happening to Montagnards in Vietnam.
Retired Army Capt. D.L. "Pappy" Hicks, who has worked on behalf of the Montagnards, said refugees in the United States have to rely on the U.S. State Department, humanitarian groups and word-of-mouth for news about their homeland.
"They still have sisters, mothers and fathers, other members of family," said Hicks, who lives in Troup, about 115 miles southeast of Dallas.
One refugee who lives in Texas said he worries about aunts and uncles who remain in the Central Highlands. He said there have been reports of atrocities. He didn't want his name published for fear that his family would be persecuted.
He said they can't practice Christianity freely. There are stories of people waking up to work their fields, only to learn that the government has seized their land.
"That is just one story," he said. "That makes the people angry. ... We don't have any rights or powers."