(An eye-witness account)
Twelve bus loads of Degar Montagnards arrived outside Lafayette Square across from the White House at about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 16. Some 700, dressed in white shirts with Montagnard Foundation logos, they walked in orderly fashion carrying Montagnard and U.S. flags and signs. The signs said, "President Bush Remember us" and "Vietnam stop killing Degar Christians."
Outside the White House they gathered in the street and lined up to make an impressive site. Kids as young as three or four stood with their parents. Soon some Cambodians of the Kymer Campuchia came and joined them and the crowd stretched down the street.
There was a band of Degar Montagnards (French for 'mountain dwellers') dressed in loin clothes and traditional clothes carrying gongs and large drum like instruments, in the same fashion they have done for thousands of years. A group of women in traditional dress also held hands and danced to the beat of the drums and ancient gongs.
Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation, addressed the crowd and made a plea to President Bush followed by a mass prayer vigil.
"We, the proud indigenous Degar Montagnard people as members of the Montagnard Foundation stand here today in front of the White House to speak publicly on behalf of our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution inside Vietnam. We are here to ask President George W. Bush to remember us in his upcoming discussions with Vietnamese [leader] Nguyen Minh Triet who is visiting the White House next week and also for the Vietnamese [leader] to cease his government from persecuting our people."
During the long Vietnam War, an estimated 100,000 Montagnards served with the U.S. military and by the end of the war over a quarter of our population, over 200,000 people had died, including half of all adult males being killed, according to Ksor. He described what happened to his people when the communist took over Vietnam in 1975.
"…the communists enacted a brutal revenge against our race, killing or imprisoning our leaders and Christian pastors in brutal re-education camps. Ever since, the Vietnamese government has continued land exploitation, Christian persecution, torture, killings and imprisonment of our people. The communist regime in Hanoi continues today to torture and kill our house church Christians who resist joining the 'official' church. Hundreds of our people remain in prison for peacefully demonstrating for human rights, for spreading Christianity or for fleeing to Cambodia. Many of our prisoners have been specifically beaten to cause a slow death from internal injuries."
Ksor next described the extra security measures the communists Vietnamese use in the central highlands on the Montagnards: "surveillance, arrests, beatings, electric shock torture, imprisonment and murder."
As I filmed and watched the crowd, directly in front of me the entire group of 700 plus Montagnards prayed. A number of Montagnards started crying. I recall one young man who looked to me in his late 20s was wiping away his tears, crying while he was trying to pray and the scene really hit me. I thought: "These are the people the Vietnamese [regime] tortures and kills." I thought of the torture victims who were electric shocked that I had interviewed in the past and the ones describing how their relatives were beaten or imprisoned.
I could also see some ex-Green berets too in the crowd. One guy Joe Rimar wearing his green beret stood with the Montagnard group. He was carrying a loin clothe he was given by Montagnards during the Vietnam war.
Around noon the crowd moved out to 17th Street and made its way to Constitutional Ave. I was in the front and watched hundreds of Montagnards crossing streets, carrying flags and banners as people in cars all looked over and watched in amazement.
Near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the Montagnards dispersed into the trees. They then made their way over towards the Wall and spread out. Crowds leaving the Vietnam Wall memorial all stood at the fence, reading the banners and many asked questions from those near the fence. A number of veterans and various people from all age groups appeared supportive.
At the Wall, Kok Ksor spoke again, this time about the sacrifice Americans made in Vietnam.
"As we stand here we can see the names of 58,000 Americans on the black marble of the Vietnam Wall memorial who died for freedom in Southeast Asia. We pay tribute to them and pray for their souls and pray that their sacrifice was not in vain. We the Degar Montagnard people still have hope that the ultimate sacrifice made by these Americans will one day bring true democracy and freedom to Vietnam..."
A prayer vigil again was done and hundreds of Montagnard prayed in their tribal languages. They also chanted "President Bush remember us" and the tribal band circled around the park banging their gongs. The group then disbanded and boarded their buses around 4 p.m.
Scott Johnson is an advisor to the Montagnard Foundation.
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