Yesterday as Easter celebrations began - hundreds of thousands of our people commenced a mass public prayer demonstration inside Vietnam’s central highlands. We even issued an urgent appeal prior as it was feared the Vietnamese authorities would brutally suppress us as they have persecuted us for the last 28 years. The main reason our people inside Vietnam are doing this demonstration is because:

• they want international monitors allowed into the Central highlands to monitor the ongoing human rights abuses as recommended by the 2002 Human Rights Commission (UN doc: CCPR/C/SR.2031).

Vietnam refuses to allow monitors into our homelands and has brutally suppressed our people for being Christian or being non-violent activists. Human Rights Watch Stated in 2002 “The Montagnards have been repressed by Vietnam for decades. This has got to stop.” But nothing has changed and only got worse and our people state they cannot take the persecution anymore by the Vietnamese government, they cannot take the electric shock torture, they cannot take being forced to denounce Christ, they cannot take being arrested, being beaten and being forced off their ancestral lands into a life of poverty and hardship. They cannot take being imprisoned and having their women coerced into getting sterilized.

I wish to say clearly however, that no attempt was made to ever use violence. In fact these demonstrations are based on Christianity and Gandhi’s non-violence ideas.

We are also very sympathetic to the Vietnamese people and of course the Vietnamese Buddhists who suffer religious persecution too by the communist government of Vietnam. We bare no hatred toward the Vietnamese people.

As Christians we also state 100 percent that we do not wish to overthrow the Vietnamese government and that we are not interested in seeking independence. All we want is to live as indigenous peoples on our ancestral lands without fear of persecution without the Vietnamese authorities interfering in our religious affairs nor forcing us to renounce Christ and without the fear our ancestral lands will be confiscated where we are driven to a life of poverty.

In our language we have no word for independence, but we have a word for freedom. It is this word freedom which the government of Vietnam lies and says that we are seeking independence. As a Christian I pray not only for our brothers and sisters inside Vietnam who struggle for freedom but also I pray for the Vietnamese authorities who persecute us.

We have received information that hundreds of our unarmed people were brutally attacked, hundreds killed and that thousands will start an exodus to Cambodia. SEE OUR UPDATE BELOW:

ON SATURDAY 10 APRIL 2004 MORE THAN 150,000 MONTAGNARDS took to the streets of Vietnam's Central Highlands to BEGIN a series of NONVIOLENT DEMONSTRATIONS OF PUBLIC PRAYER against THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT’S denial of their FREEDOM to worship their religion.

As soon as the gatherings started the Vietnamese police and security forces intervened, what follows is a developing story compiled with information received via mobile phones by Mr. Kok Ksor, President of the U.S.-based Montagnard Foundation and member of the General Council of the Transnational Radical Party.

• On Saturday 10 April some 150,000 Degars went to the city of Buonmathuot in Vietnam's Central Highlands for a peaceful demonstration. After only a few hours, Vietnamese soldiers, mixed with the police and Vietnamese civilians attacked the crowd beating demonstrators with electric batons, throwing rocks, and shooting with rifles. Dozens of demonstrators have been reported dead and many have their legs and hands broken. There are reports of people being decapitated. The latest news put at around 200 the number of dead bodies left in the city and in the surrounding coffee plantations. On Pham Chu Trinh street it is reported several hundred dead bodies in the streets.

• In the district of Ayunpa, some 100,000 people reached the major city from every direction. When the first demonstration started, some of them were beaten by the police and soldiers, who after a while had to desist as they were outnumbered by the crowd.

• It is still not clear how many people participated in the demonstrations in Plei ku city as the communication was soon lost, thousands of people were expected to show up. The same will happen in Kontum city and in Dalat city approximately 50,000 will attend.

• In the city of Phuoc Long the total was around 50,000; many of the demonstrators got hurt. In the district of Cu Jut there were 3,000 people, who participated in the demonstration, around 100 of them have been reported dead because of beating from soldiers and Vietnamese civilians. In the district of Dak Mil there 2,500 people demonstrated. But there are no figures on casualties.

There is the possibility that a mass exodus may start soon towards the bordering Cambodian jungle.

On Friday April 9, the Montagnards appealed on those countries that recognize freedom of religion TO request access to THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS and to monitor the situation, also with satellites, TO PROTECT THEIR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.

A reaction of the international community is now more urgent than ever. The list of places can be used to compile satellite photographic evidence of what happened.