The Montagnard people were under French rule for 106 years, and the French did not really want the Montagnard people to civilize and advance. Therefore, the French government restricted the education of the Montagnards and never allowed the Montagnard students to attend college and to study abroad. Unfortunately, the French created the Montagnards an autonomous country only in order to exploit the Montagnards. They used this to lure the Montagnard forces to fight against the Viet Minh in order to protect the French investments in the Central Highlands, such as coffee, tea and rubber plantations, where they used free Montagnard labor.
Because of the French policy for 106 years, 98% of the Montagnards were illiterate. The French opened schools for 1st to 6th grade, only enough education for labors of French’s coffee, tea plantations in the Central Highlands.
Later, in an attempt to win greater support among the Montagnards, the French did decide to improve secondary schools by establishing the prestigious Lycee Yersin in Dalat; however, no Montagnard students were allowed to study abroad.
During the French-Indochina War 1945-1954, the French recruited and trained thirteen battalions of Montagnard troops to fight against Viet Minh. The French also used the Montagnard troops to participate in the Laos and Siam (Thailand) wars. In these wars, thousands of Montagnards lost their lives in battlefields all over South East Asia, not for the Montagnards’ benefit, but for the sake of French colonial interests in Indochina.
The South and North Vietnam War 1955-1975: During these 20 years, both Vietnamese governments recruited and trained thousands of the Montagnards who fought and died for both sides, without a righteous cause. Both governments restricted the education of the Montagnards. They made it very difficult for the Montagnard students to attend college and they never allowed the Montagnard students to study abroad.
Both regimes used pre-meditated plans to exterminate the Montagnard people so that they could unite the country and occupy the ancestral lands of the Montagnard people.
The South Vietnamese under the Ngo Dinh Diem regime rejected the basic rights of the Montagnards, refused to recognize them as rightful owners of the Central Highlands, and eliminated the autonomy granted by the French on May 27, 1946.
Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh regime falsely promised to restore autonomy to the Montagnards after victory over the South Vietnam. For this reason Ho Chi Minh forcefully recruited thousands of Montagnard as soldiers to fight and die for his communist cause. Tens of thousands of villager’s, men and women and children were conscripted to serve as laborers and to work on construction of the Ho Chi Minh trail.
The North Vietnamese underground cadre had activities in every Montagnard village in the remote areas, and they forced the Montagnards to supply them with food and also to transport ammunition. Taking a lesson from Vietnams Japanese, oppressors, Ho Chi Minh’s cadre used many young women for their entertainment as “comfort girls”. Those who refused to cooperate were killed publicly in order to scare the other villagers.
It was reported to the South Vietnamese government that the villagers supported the North Vietnamese. Then, the South Vietnamese government would send troops to destroy that village. The villagers were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and killed.
After attacking and overrunning Montagnard villages, the North Vietnamese would raise the North Vietnamese flag and then send cadre to report to the South Vietnamese government that the village was full of North Vietnamese or Viet Cong. In response, the government of South Vietnam gladly sent Vietnamese or American air strikes to destroy the village, along with the people in it.
The North Vietnamese frightened the Montagnard villagers by saying that the United States air strikes would destroy their villages, and then sat that it would be safe for the villagers to hide themselves in the jungle. So, many Montagnard villagers, who were far from the South Vietnamese governmental control, were forced to move into the jungle to live in caves after their village was destroyed.
There was no place to go; with no clothes and no food, the Montagnards became slaves to the North Vietnamese, or their minions, the Viet Cong. The North Vietnamese forbade the Montagnards to have babies. Crying babies would make it easy for the enemy to hear and find them, so they disciplined Montagnard men and women not to have children.
The North Vietnamese attacked and burned many Montagnard villages, based only on the suspicion that the villagers were sympathetic to the South Vietnamese government or there were South Vietnamese army soldiers in the villages. The North Vietnamese falsely promised that Uncle Ho Chi Minh would provide “War damages compensation for the Montagnards after victory was achieved over South Vietnam”.
However, the North Vietnamese killed us because we were on territory claimed by the South Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese killed us if they thought we were collaborating with the North Vietnamese. Both sides killed Montagnards during the war.
From 1958-1975, the Montagnard movements — BAJARAKA, FLHPM and FULRO – were struggles for the right to live. The Saigon government did not want to address the Montagnards’ demands and resolve their problems. Instead of conciliating and making peace, Saigon acted inhumanely, aiming to exterminate the Montagnard race. Saigon knew the Montagnard struggle would not end and they also knew well that the Vietnamese Communist constantly violated human rights.
So the Saigon government put the Montagnard aspirations aside and left the problems unresolved until their defeat by the North Vietnamese Communists in 1975. Then the ethnic cleansing passed to the North Vietnamese Communists who almost immediately began destroying the Montagnards in the Central Highlands with a long-term plan and logical method of genocide. Outside observers might use the term “ethnic cleansing” or cultural leveling and assimilation. For our people who have lost so much and whose population continues to diminish, it is indeed “genocide”!
1945-1975 – Before the French-Indochina war, the Montagnard population was approximately 2.5 million people. By the time this war ended, the South Vietnamese government estimated the Montagnard population to be approximately 1.5 million people. The Central Highlands was a battleground for thirty years. The Montagnard people were involved in wars and fought alongside the French, American and South Vietnamese troops. In this war more than a million Montagnard people were killed and 85% of the Montagnard villages were destroyed or abandoned. Now the communist government estimates the Montagnard population to be approximately 750,000 people, while the Vietnamese population has tripled to 78 million.
After French and American withdrawal from Vietnam, the end of the war did not bring peace to the Montagnard people. Montagnard sacrifices were ignored. Montagnards received in return only misery, suffering and contempt.
Truly, the Montagnards were used as tools in the wars of larger nations who discarded when they were no longer useful. The Montagnard people were victims caught in the middle of all these conflicts. Almost all Montagnard leaders were killed; only a handful was able to escape to the United States.
The history of the Montagnard people is full of heroes who perished under foreign domination — under the yoke of French colonialism for 106 years and 50 years under the brutal dictatorship of the Vietnamese to present. As a result, the Montagnards have endured over 156 years of domination and rule by foreigners in their ancestral lands. We have lived through terrible times; living a life of deprivation from hand to mouth. The Montagnards have never had the chance to know happiness. There has been no opportunity to develop. They have lost more than any other group in Vietnam: the right to live; the right to own their ancestral land; the right to have churches; the right to attend local school; the right to maintain their culture; and right to operate traditional courts.
They are now in danger of losing their entire culture. The Hanoi communist regime has systematically abolished the Montagnards’ traditional ways of life. The Central Highlands is now a prison area – a gulag — for the Montagnard people, who are the victims of “Ethnic Cleansing”. The eyes of the world need to be focused on this critical problem; yet they have seemingly turned their heads to our plight. The Montagnards’ lives are untenable for they suffer terribly and is it difficult to survive under the Vietnamese communist regime.
Throughout our historic struggle we have sacrificed our lives for our freedom and our self-determination. Today the repressive Hanoi regime continues to accelerate their program of the methodical “ethnic cleansing” – genocide — against Montagnards through brutal repression and killings, relocation, starvation and disease.
Billions of dollars is spent on the preservation of biodiversity; but only on plants, animals and other organisms. Wild animals on the earth and fish and other aquatic life in lakes and in the ocean are protected by international organizations. With proper law they are fighting to stop the killing of millions of animals each year. The Montagnard people are not animals. We are human beings who are facing extinction. The Vietnamese communist regime must be responsible for their horrible policies of discrimination, “ethnic cleansing” and genocide against the Montagnard people.
We, the Montagnard people, are crying out to the world for restoration our basic human rights. We yearn for freedom and peace. We especially implore the United Nations and the International Community to help to stop the oppression and support the Montagnard Human Rights Organization’s peaceful struggle to regain freedom for the Montagnard people in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
We have tasted freedom, we believe in freedom, we have died for freedom, and we have died alongside those who struggle for freedom in the world.
We have land given to us from our ancestors. We once had a population of two and a half million. We had a government. The French granted the Montagnard people an autonomous state on May 27, 1946. The spirit of democracy and freedom are deep-rooted in the Montagnard people. The Montagnard people struggled from 1958 through 1973 with the following movements: BAJARAKA, FULRO, and FLHPM. Now MHRO in the USA is struggling for the rights of the Montagnard people; however, this organization is using only peaceful means and international law to regain basic human rights for our people.
We have formulated the elements for self-determination, for self-governance, and a peaceful state for the Montagnard people in the Central Highlands, living in accordance with the rule of law, and honoring the rights of all citizens of Vietnam.
Our intention is to respect the rights of all people, and to develop Montagnard self-determination with every peaceful and legal means possible within and outside of Vietnam.
MHRO’s ultimate goal is to obtain the support from the United Nations, the International Community and the people of the free world in recognizing the Montagnard right of self-determination for the Montagnard populations and their right to choose their own destiny. Our struggle will continue by every peaceful means. Our dream is for the Montagnard people to be able to live in peace and freedom without fear.
Vien Siu and Rong Nay at UN