Socialist Republic of Vietnam

1. Tracing the roots of the Montagnard Foundation:

The Montagnard Foundation is the latest incarnation of the Fulro Separatist Insurgency. “Fulro” first made a name for itself as a militant group in September 1964 when it organized a rebellion among 3,000 Montagnard combatants in five US special force camps in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.” It has been known as a separatist group, advocating and using violent means.

Before 1975, the former Saigon administration harshly suppressed the Fulro uprisings. Following the uprising in December 1965, “four of the Fulro leaders were condemned to death and publicly executed and fifteen others were imprisoned”.

“In April 1975, a pro-US Fulro group reportedly negotiated an arrangement with US officials to continue guerilla warfare against the Hanoi regime”. After 1975, the run-away Fulro members colluded with the Khmer Rouge. “By 1977 Fulro’s primary supporters were the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, with whom they had formed an uneasy alliance. In 1977, the two groups signed an agreement for the exchange of information and training, and in 1978 a Fulro combatant denounced Ho Chi Minh over Radio Phnom Penh. Ieng Sary, then Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Khmer Rouge, said in 1979: ‘the Fulro approached us for cooperation to exchange intelligence, military experience and get guerilla warfare training.’”

“In 1986 several hundred Fulro soldiers and their families were relocated to the United States as refugees.” In 1992, the Montagnard Foundation was set up, advocating the establishment of an independent Dega republic: “the US-based Montagnard Foundation, Inc. (MFI), led by Jarai-American Kok Ksor, launched a renewed effort to build support for an independent “Dega” homeland in 2000.” To that end, members of the Foundation encourage subversive activities by separatist elements in the Central Highlands.

In conclusion, the Montagnard Foundation is a political organization (not a human rights organization) with a separatist agenda and resorting to violence and abuse of religious freedom to interfere from outside with a view to destabilizing and sowing division among the ethnic communities in the Central Highlands.

2. Who is Ksor Kok (founder and leader of the Montagnard Foundation)?

Born in 1945 in Gia Lai province (Central Highlands of Vietnam), Ksor Kok joined the Fulro separatist group led by Kpa Koi in 1969 when it moved to Cambodia.

Ksor Kok received military staff training in the US in 1974. In December 1974, general Y Bham Enuol – leader of the Fulro movement presented Ksor Kok publicly as a lieutenant general serving as his aide and representative in the US.

In 1992, Ksor Kok together with a number of Fulro core cadres set up the Montagnard Foundation (MFI). By late 1999, Ksor Kok officially proclaimed the establishment of the ‘independent Dega state’ in exile in the United States. The Dega state purports to include 14 provinces of Vietnam from Quang Tri to Binh Thuan with the 4 provinces of the Central Highlands at the core. MFI and Ksor Kok also promote a new religious denomination, so called Dega Protestantism, along ethnic lines, Dega Protestantism being reserved only for Central Highlands ethnic minority followers, separate from protestant believers from the majority ethnic group i.e. a policy which amounts to ethnic discrimination and division and exploitation of religion for political purposes.

NB: All above-motioned quotes are taken from a report published by Human Rights Watch in April 2002