Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Vietnam requests the so-called Transnational Radical Party (TRP), which is enjoying the consultative status with ECOSOC, to stop immediately granting accreditation for Ksor Kok and his Montagnard Foundation Inc. (MFI) to attend UN meetings and conferences to advance their terrorist campaign and their separatist agenda.

So said Le Luong Minh, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN at the annual session of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)'s NGO Committee on the Special Report by the TRP in New York on May 14.

''Vietnam is concerned about the TRP’s accreditation to Ksor Kok, a member of the FULRO (le Front Unifie pour la Liberation des Races Opprimees) who is living in exile in the US, and the MFI to allow them to participate in UN meetings and conferences in abusing its consultative status with ECOSOC,'' Mr Minh said, adding that ''it is time the Committee should take action to correct the situation.''

Ambassador Minh showed the NGO Committee persuasive evidences about systematically hostile activities of Ksor Kok and his MFI, confirming ''Ksor Kok is a terrorist who is instigating and organising terror in pursuit of his MFI’s publicly proclaimed goal of establishing a so-called “State of Degar” in the Central Highlands of Vietnam''.

Vietnam had asked the NGO Committee to request the TRP to submit a special report to explain its wrongful acts. The diplomat further said ''Unfortunately, just as its previous ones, the TRP’s latest report only repeats all the arguments, which are but beating-about-the-bush and which the Committee had found unsatisfactory.''

Ambassador Minh underlined that Vietnam had kept warning the international community and had warned the Committee that for their blind political ambitions and their terrorist nature. Ksor Kok and his MFI incited, prepared and co-ordinated the violent riots in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 2001 and last April.

In April 2004, during the Easter holidays, from his office in South Carolina, Ksor Kok and his MFI worked out a draft plan for violent demonstrations in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He instigated and instructed his followers, the extremist elements in the Dak Lak and Gia Lai provinces to deceive, instigate and force local people to carry out violent demonstrations. The day before the demonstrations took place, from his office in South Carolina, Ksor Kok and the MFI sent out the draft plan to many international media organisations including those of Vietnamese overseas, informing them that there would be demonstrations in Vietnam, that they had mobilised hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to take part, that the demonstration would last several days, claimed themselves as the organisers, and called for international support and attention. Under the instructions from Ksor Kok and the MFI, the extremist elements in Dak Lak and Gia Lai used dangerous weapons to beat on-duty officers causing serious injuries, destroyed public works and property in some communes.

The Vietnamese representative also showed pictures of those violent action to the meeting participants.

''What happened last April only confirmed what Vietnam had warned,'' Mr Minh said.

The Ambassador noted ''The issue has been dragging on for three years now. The time that has elapsed and the happenings over that period of time have only made it more and more clear that Ksor Kok is a terrorist and that he and his MFI for their fanatic political ambition are resorting to more and more dangerous forms of terror to destabilise Vietnam, threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, a state member of the United Nations, which ECOSOC is mandated to help in its economic and social development''.

He affirmed ''that the TRP is abusing its consultative status with ECOSOC to allow a terrorist and his terrorist organisation to participate in UN meetings and conferences. The move goes counter to the spirit, purposes and principles of the United Nations and constitutes a serious violation of ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31.''

The Ambassador went on to say ''More serious, the TRP has done so while the matter is still under consideration by the Committee. This is a situation unacceptable to Vietnam, to any country and unacceptable to the United Nations and to ECOSOC, to the Committee in particular, to those joining efforts in our common fight against terrorism.

Unless the TRP stops immediately granting accreditation for Ksor Kok and his MFI, ''Vietnam will have no option but lodging its request for the Committee to suspend its consultative status with ECOSOC until it does so,'' the Vietnamese Ambassador concluded. (VNA)