February 22, 2007 at 18:47:32

Hunting Montagnards In Cambodia

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By The Co Van, Posted by John E. Carey (about the submitter) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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What a tragedy that America has abandoned our former allies in the Vietnam War a second time. Now the US has the leverage to force the Vietnamese government to treat the Montagnards better but it remains silent when Hanoi glosses over their draconian human rights record in their bid for entrance into the WTO.

The new focus in Vietnam today is market capitalism with no human rights or religious freedom for the ethnic minorities. The communist party and the politburo that are the real power in Vietnam learned long ago that they could make money off the backs of the little people. That's why they confiscated the Montagnards' valuable land in the Central Highlands.

According to the magazine Asia Inc, Nov-Dec 2006, the government of Vietnam today owns 1500 state enterprises worth 30 billion dollars. Yes, that's right, a tiny minority that comprises the communist party that is the government of Vietnam is now worth 30 billion dollars.

Why have the mainstream media ignored the plight of the Montagnards and their cousins, the Hmong in Laos for over 30 years, and still continue to do so?

The modern day intelligentsia that dominate our universities where speech codes are in place and free exchange of ideas are very limited, grew up as a part of the anti-war movement of the l960's singing the simple Marxist phrases of Ho Chi Minh and damning the evil American military capitalist machine. And most of the mainstream media stars of that time period marched lock step with them. It's now a given that the Vietnam War was lost in the streets of American and on American television. Even the North Vietnamese generals admit it in their memoirs. (Is a similar parallel unfolding today?)

Those Vietnam Veterans who fought the war along side the South Vietnamese and the Montagnards received the scorn of the American left who sang praises for Uncle Ho and his communist cadres who were going to introduce the new socialist paradise on earth. But then, the holocaust that unraveled in Southeast Asia after the American military left, had been simply too painful for the left in America to face, for if they honestly examined it, they might find themselves guilty by their tacit support for the perpetrators of the killing fields in Cambodia, the reeducation camps in Vietnam, and the genocide of the ethnic hill tribes that continues today.

To put it into simpler words, that's the side the left in America rooted for in the Vietnam War. How can they ever honestly face up to it? Or accurately write about it.

One has to wonder why the Vietnamese communist party is so paranoid and ruthless in their treatment of a few Montagnards escaping their clutches in the middle of the night. That's because they know they can get away with it and that the mainstream media in the West really isn't interested in the human rights abuses of a communist police state.

It seems the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still owns the hearts and minds of the dominant media culture in America. By their ongoing silence that has lasted for over 30 years, they continue to ignore the ongoing genocide in Southeast Asia of our former allies and swallow the communist doublespeak as to the human rights violation there.

But if one were ever to stray off the tourist path in Cambodia and Vietnam like I have, it's easy to discover that, "The Montagnards are hunted down like animals and sold back to the Vietnamese communist government, and the rest of the world doesn't give a damn."
***********************
We at Peace and Freedom salute Mr. Scott Johnson in Australia who works tirelessly in behalf of the Montagnard peoples and manages the Montagnard Foundation.
http://www.montagnard-foundation.org/homepage.html

Co Van translates as "The Advisor." The writer of this essay works inside Communist Vietnam sometimes on behalf of the Montgnards and needs to remain anonymous to relain free.

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http://johnib.wordpress.com/

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