For Christians, Vietnam war rages
ICC Note:
Vietnam's war against Christianity continues, and the war against the Montagnard people appears largely ignored by the United States.
6/26/09 Vietnam (WashingtonTimes) Vietnam's "hidden" war on Christianity just rumbles along, and on March 13, the communist authorities demolished one of the first Christian churches built in Vietnam's Central Highlands. While religious persecution is nothing new to Vietnam, the significance of this demolition is particularly symbolic because the church was more than a historical landmark. The large stone Church at Buon Ma Thuot for the last 34 years had been deliberately closed by Vietnam's security police, and yet, all those years, the church remained a powerful symbol to the local indigenous Christians.
Unfortunately, the church was also an unwelcome reminder for the communists who had murdered a number of Christian missionaries near the grounds in 1968, and a reminder of the very movement the government is trying to eliminate. This movement, so hated by Hanoi, is nothing other than "independent" Christian house churches.
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This repression against Christians in Vietnam is decades old, and it was in 2004 that the U.S. State Department first added Vietnam to the "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) designation, the official "watch list" of nations that commit serious religious persecution. Potentially, CPC designation involves sanctions being imposed on such countries. However, after negotiations with Hanoi, the CPC designation was removed as the communist authorities "promised" to undertake religious reforms, including stopping forced renunciations of faith, an actual policy directed against tribal Christians.
Today, however, the question remains whether Vietnam everintended to honor such reforms and whether the State Department conveniently accepted Hanoi's dubious promises in order to gain trade, military and diplomatic relations. If the State Department did so, it is clear the Degar Montagnards - who were America's loyal allies during the Vietnam War - have been relegated to little or no importance.
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The evidence today suggests that not only is religious persecution continuing in Vietnam, but also that Hanoi has merely changed tactics in persecuting Christians. Since being dropped from the CPC designation in 2006, hundreds - if not thousands - of Degar Christians have been arrested, beaten and threatened in what appears a policy to repress the house churches from expanding membership. It is estimated that during the past decade, Protestant congregations have grown 600 percent in Vietnam, a statistic that has greatly alarmed communist officials.
Today, "forced renunciations" have been replaced by control mechanisms - namely, torture, beatings, imprisonment and killings. Instead of forcing Christians to renounce their faith, Vietnamese authorities force Degar Montagnards to join "government-approved" churches, such as the Evangelical Church of Vietnam - South (ECVN-S), where Christians can be watched, controlled and, if need be, arrested and imprisoned like "Puih Hbat." In other words, "You can be a Christian, but you must be our Christian."
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The Vietnam War saw an estimated 40,000 Degar Montagnards serving with American forces at any one time, and by the end of the conflict, some 200,000 of these people, a quarter of their population, had perished. The late Ed Sprague, former U.S. Special Forces soldier and Foreign Service officer, who served with the Montagnards for seven years, summed up their role stating, "There was a dual love - we loved them and they loved us, and they saved a lot of American lives."
In Washington today, however, the Degar Montagnards have been conveniently forgotten. The historical role they played in the Vietnam War, their sacrifice and their loyalty to the United States are practically unheard of. Only a few members of Congress have ever raised their issue, and the Obama administration seems about as interested today in hearing about Degar Montagnards as the communists are in Hanoi.
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