Via David
During the Vietnam War, Kanh Kpa’s indigenous Montagnard relatives
fought alongside US Army Special Forces in Vietnam’s remote Central
Highlands, where the mostly Christian tribesmen gained a reputation as
fierce and loyal allies.
But
after the war, the ethnic and religious minority Montagnards, or
“mountain people,” long at odds with the Vietnamese government, paid a
steep price. Some were imprisoned, others fled into jungles or suffered
years of ethnic discrimination and religious repression, human rights
groups say.
Today Kpa is living in hiding in a
dingy house on the outskirts of Bangkok, among a wave of hundreds of
Montagnards who fled to Thailand and Cambodia in the last year claiming
religious persecution — the latest chapter of a troubled history.
Kpa
said local Vietnamese authorities last year harassed and detained him
and others. But while he’s pinning his hopes on getting to the United
States, so far he and other asylum seekers among the former US tribal
allies are fighting an uphill battle for both refugee status and
international attention to their plight.
