The Vientiane opportunity

Verghese Mathews New Straits Times Kuala Lumpur

ASEAN's 10th summit in Vientiane, Laos, is a good time to address what is rapidly becoming a major problem for three members of the grouping: The fate of the Montagnards in the central highlands of Vietnam.

ASEAN has come a long way from the crestfallen days of the Asian financial crisis when even its close allies and trading partners seriously questioned its ability to get itself out of a self-created quagmire. Some cynics even wrote ASEAN off as a fading sunset grouping.

When ASEAN leaders meet in Vientiane this week such disquiet is well behind them -- not because of the passage of time but because member countries took bold and unpopular steps to redress the situation in which they had found themselves.

The point to be made here is that when faced with a common threat, one which they could not ignore, ASEAN members closed ranks.

ASEAN leaders in Vientiane will no doubt build on the renewed confidence the grouping enjoys in the international community.

While this is both necessary and important, it will surely stand the organization in good stead to look well beyond economic achievements and anti-terrorist co-operation. ASEAN needs to urgently take cognizance of festering local issues that have the invariable tendency to spill over, then inch their way to become bilateral problems and end up being regional embarrassments.

Southern Thailand comes quickly to mind and in a slightly different context, so does Myanmar.

It is important that ASEAN leaders are adequately briefed before arriving in the Laotian capital about another festering problem -- that of the Montagnards, meaning "mountain people", the collective name given by the French to the numerous indigenous tribes and aboriginal groups inhabiting the Vietnamese Central Highlands.

The Montagnards inhabited the central highlands "long before Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam became nations in the modern sense". And yet there is now an influx of desperate Montagnards leaving their ancestral homes for Cambodia -- initially in search of asylum and third-country resettlement, citing relentless religious persecution, increasing marginalisation and the blatant confiscation of their land. The Vietnamese Government has rejected these allegations.

When the UNHCR informed the Montagnards that this was not one of its functions, some disappointed ones chose to make the two- day jungle trek back to the central highlands. However, the majority, now numbering more than 500, have decided to remain in Cambodia until their land problem is resolved. They have refused all offers of resettlement in the United States.

In effect, what was essentially a Vietnamese problem is now a Cambodian problem -- worse, a problem not of its making. For obvious financial and political reasons, Cambodia has decided that its territory will only serve as a transit point for the Montagnards.

As the Montagnards are now no longer willing to remain in the border provinces but head directly to Cambodia's capital where they have greater access to the media and the international community, their presence has now become a UNHCR problem as well. The UNHCR is unable to provide temporary accommodation in the capital and it has become increasingly difficult to persuade the refugees to return to Vietnam. It does not end there.

Slowly, others are getting into the picture. Some Montagnards who resettled earlier in the U.S. are actively promoting international awareness of the plight of their relatives. As most of the Montagnards are Christians, there is a religious dimension, with Western church groups joining the chorus of those demanding a political solution to the Montagnard problem. They are agitating for Vietnam to reverse the policies that are forcing the Montagnards to desert the sacred homeland of their forefathers.

There is yet another dimension to this. The Montagnards are said to have fought heroically alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War and have been widely recognized by U.S. war veterans as the "true friends of the Americans" in Vietnam. The Montagnards have paid very heavily for this alliance -- an estimated 50 percent of male Montagnards were killed in the Vietnam War.

We won't have to wait too long to find out whether or not the summit in Vientiane proves to be a turning point for ASEAN, with its leaders deciding how best to address the festering development in the Central Highlands, the growing divisiveness in southern Thailand and the lack of meaningful progress in Yangon. For the sake of all our peoples, we hope that our leaders will not let the Vientiane opportunity pass them by.

The writer, until recently Singapore's Ambassador to Cambodia, is at present a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.