US offers to take Vietnam refugees

Refugees complain of being forced off their land

The United States has said it is prepared to give asylum to about 1,000 ethnic minority people who have fled Vietnam for Cambodia, in a move likely to infuriate Vietnam.

There is no reason to consider them refugees

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh

Vietnam has said it is unaware of any offer from the US, but said there was no reason to class the asylum seekers as refugees.

Vietnam has accused the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) of failing to do its part to return the hill-tribe Montagnard people to their homes in the Vietnamese highlands.

They had fled to Cambodia last year after a military crackdown in the central highlands in response to ethnic unrest over land use and religious freedoms.

Kent Wiedemann, US ambassador in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, told Reuters news agency that the US was willing to take the ethnic minority refugees if Cambodia agreed.

The Cambodian Government is considering the proposal, the country's Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters.

But Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said: "We have no information as to US intentions."

She reiterated the Hanoi view that opponents of Vietnam living in the US had tricked the "illegal border crossers" into leaving.

"There is no discrimination, no legal process and no sanctions towards them when they return to Vietnam, and there is no reason to consider them refugees," she said.

The Montagnards' links with American troops during the Vietnam war have sometimes been blamed for their poor relations with the Vietnamese Government.

UN withdrawal

The UN said on Friday it was withdrawing from a voluntary repatriation agreement with Hanoi and Phnom Penh, following the intimidation of people living in camps in Cambodia, and threats to the lives of UN staff.

More than 400 Vietnamese crossed into Cambodia last Thursday and threatened and manhandled inmates and staff at the Mondulkiri camp, according to the UN.

Vietnam has rejected the accusations of intimidation in the UN camps.

Concern about the fate of the Montagnards had escalated after Cambodia twice deported a total of about 90 people in breech of the January agreement.

The UN withdrawal means the situation has returned to the stalemate which existed before the repatriation agreement was signed in January between the UN, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The UN has supervised the return of just 15 people since the return agreement was signed, suspending further repatriations after Hanoi refused to allow ongoing monitoring of the situation in the highlands.