Cambodia to close Vietnamese refugee centre

via CAAI

2010-12-14

PHNOM PENH, Tuesday 14 December 2010 (AFP) - The UN refugee agency on Tuesday pleaded for more time to resettle 62 Vietnamese ethnic minority Montagnards after the Cambodian government said it would shut down the centre housing the refugees.

The largely Christian Montagnard community -- a group whose members backed US forces during the Vietnam war -- says they face repression in Vietnam.

The Cambodian office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been informed by the Foreign Ministry that facility in Phnom Penh will be closed on January 1.

"The UNHCR is requested to speed up the process of resettling the 62 Montagnards who are qualified for resettlement in third countries," the ministry wrote in a letter, dated November 29 and seen by AFP on Tuesday.

It added that the Cambodian government would repatriate to Vietnam any remaining Montagnards, "including the new arrivals, and those awaiting interview, on a date to be notified in due course".

A UNHCR spokeswoman refused to comment on the exact number of Montagnards currently staying at the compound, saying it would only discuss the 62 Montagnards up for resettlement.

"We have asked the government to give us some more time and we hope the Cambodian government will consider our request favourably," UNHCR Asia spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey told AFP.

"We want to find long-term solutions for these 62 individuals."

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Around 2,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia in 2001 and 2004 after security forces crushed protests against land confiscations and religious persecution.

Vietnam, Cambodia and the UNHCR signed an agreement in January 2005 under which Montagnards may choose whether to resettle in a third country or return home. Cambodia has refused to allow them to stay in the kingdom.

The majority were resettled, with the United States taking in many.

Communist Vietnam has strongly denied a 2006 accusation by the New York-based Human Rights Watch that it had detained and tortured Montagnards who returned home.