Washington (AsiaNews) – "The international community must act now and insist that Vietnam allow independent observers to enter the country's Highlands region to conduct thorough and impartial investigations," said Dinah PoKemner, Human Rights Watch (HRW) general adviser in reference to the violent clashes with Montagnard ethic minorities that erupted last Apr. 10-11.

HRW has now released detailed first report on the clashes. 

"We have received alarming accounts according to which dozens of protestors were wounded. Some them were beaten to death," PoKemner said.

The European Union also said it was "worried" about the Montagnard crisis. On Apr. 20 the EU asked Hanoi for "detailed information on the events."

Eyewitness testimony sent to HRW affirmed that police and armed civilians beat at least 10 people to death while hundreds of others were wounded during the peaceful Montagnard demonstrations. The Montagnard ethnic community was rallying for their right to religious freedom and to denounce the seizure and confiscation of their land and property.  

The state news agency and independent sources say that the violent clashes involves about 10-30,000 Montagnards from the provinces of Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Dak Nong in the country's Central Highlands. According to information learned by HRW police and civilians used metal bars, sticks with nails and chains to strike blows to unarmed Montagnards, who defended themselves by throwing rocks at their attackers. 

Witnesses say that at least 10 people died, while one was shot in the head and the nine others lost their lives after undergoing deadly beatings.

The Vietnamese government acknowledged that the clashes had occurred. According to the state controlled media only 2 persons died – one killed by rock thrown by a protestor and the other by a tractor driven by one of the Montagnards.

On Apr. 20 the Vietnamese deputy foreign minister, Le Van Bang, said that only 2 people died and that "roughly a dozen were wounded from both sides."

On the morning of Apr. 10 a 26-year old woman of the Ede minority group had witnessed clashes in the industrial Phan Chu Trinh region. She said several persons were wounded in the violent bloodbath that ensued.   Police and civilians chased down fleeing women and children while trampling over food, clothing and blankets laid out in preparation for the rally.  

"A dozen or so, including police, (ganged up) to kill a blind woman sitting on a tractor. They asked here to get down, but they she wasn't able to in her blind condition. They then assaulted and beat her until she fell from the tractor and died," she said.   

The Montagnard ethnic community is for the most part Protestant Christian. During the protests, the group shouted for their rights to religious liberty and land ownership, having suffered for decades religious persecution and expropriation of their land.

Authorities accuse them of government opposition and separatism. During the Vietnam War, the Montagnards lined up to fight alongside the United States in an attempt to create an independent state. Meanwhile Cambodia continues to deport Montagnard refugees back to Vietnam, violating the  Geneva Refugee Convention it signed in 1951. (MR)