Vietnam to prosecute 84 for alleged role in Dak Lak attacks

Vietnamese authorities said on Friday they will prosecute 84 people accused of being involved in deadly attacks on two communal offices in the central province of Dak Lak and ordered them to remain in pretrial detention.

It is unclear who was behind the June 11 attacks, which left nine dead, or what motivated them.

On Friday, the Ministry of Public Security said it had confirmed that “foreign organizations and individuals” had been involved, without elaborating.

“The materials and evidence collected by the security forces show that the incident took place with the support and guidance of various organizations and individuals from abroad,” the ministry said. “They even sent people abroad to Vietnam illegally to organize and direct the terrorist attacks.”

On Tuesday, Major General Pham Ngoc Viet, head of the ministry’s Department of Homeland Security, said those arrested in Dak Lak included members of “a US-based organization” that had been “task to enter to Vietnam and organize the attacks.”

The attacks occurred in an area that is home to some 30 indigenous tribes known collectively as the Montagnards, who have historically felt persecuted or oppressed. But the authorities have not said that those arrested were mountaineers.

RFA interviewed several mountaineering organizations abroad who denied involvement in the incident and even condemned the violent attacks.

In the days immediately following the attack, the authorities had said that those involved were youths who harbored delusions and extremist attitudes and had been incited and abetted by the ringleaders via the Internet.

charges

In an announcement, the Dak Lak Provincial Police Investigation Agency said it will try 75 of the 84 defendants on charges of “carrying out terrorist acts against the people’s government.”

Seven others were charged with “failing to report criminals,” while an eighth was charged with “concealing criminals” and a ninth with “arranging and brokering others to illegally leave, enter, or stay in Vietnam.”

The Dak Lak People’s Procuratorate approved the decision to prosecute the 84 and ordered their detention in the provincial prison before their trial.

The announcement said security forces investigating the attack have so far seized 23 pistols, two grenades, 1,199 bullets, 15 detonators, 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) of explosives, a silencer, a training model of land mines and 30 knives. He said 10 flags of the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, or FULRO, were also seized.

FULRO, founded in the 1950s, was a resistance army that fought alongside US and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War before officially disbanding in the 1990s.

Vietnam has claimed that rights groups working on Central Highlands issues are part of an ongoing separatist movement linked to FULRO, but the groups reject the claims, saying they are working non-violently for human rights.

Anger and frustration in the Central Highlands have built up after decades of government surveillance, land disputes and economic hardship, RFA reported earlier. In recent months, there have been a number of land revocation incidents by local authorities, police and military forces.

In the ministry’s description of what happened, some 40 people wearing camouflage vests and equipped with knives and guns divided into two groups to attack offices in Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes at dawn.

Members of the two groups also broke into the headquarters of the No. 198 Special Forces Brigade in Hoa Dong commune in Dak Lak province to steal weapons but failed, the ministry told state media.

Those arrested said they were looking to steal weapons to make news headlines, which they hoped would give them the opportunity to emigrate to other countries, according to the ministry.

In their preliminary statements, the detainees said they had been incited by others to kill police officers.

Four police officers, two community officials and three civilians died.

The attackers also kidnapped three civilians, though one managed to escape and the others were later rescued, the ministry said.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.