Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:48:01 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Ex-US allies head for America

11/18

EX-U.S. ALLIES FROM VIETNAM WAR HEAD FOR AMERICA

    By Mark Dodd
    PHNOM PENH, Nov 18, Reuter - The first group from an anti-Hanoi Montagnard
guerrilla force that carried on fighting the Vietnam War long after the
Americans had left began a long journey on Wednesday to new homes in the United
States.
    The tribespeople, members of a group known as FULRO (a French acronym for
United Front for the Struggle for Oppressed Races), will be eventually settled
in North Carolina, U.N. officials said.
    "With American people, we've had a good relationship. It's the first step
to a new life," said 45-year-old Y'hinnie, who spent virtually his entire life
as a guerrilla fighter.
    The first group of 45 fighters, their wives and children left Phnom Penh
for Bangkok on Wednesday afternoon aboard a Kampuchean Airlines Soviet-built
Tupolev jet.
    "Anything could have happened to them while they were in Cambodia," said a
relieved official from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
supervising the departure.
    U.S. Ambassador Charles Twining and the local head of UNHCR, Sergio Vieja
de Mello, were among a small group of senior officials on hand to see the
flight off.
    U.N. military officials were concerned with security arrangements for the
Montagnards, arch-enemies of the Vietnamese and the Phnom Penh army.
    UNHCR field officer Laurent de Valensart, in charge of the operation, said
398 FULRO members would be flown to the United States on regular charter
flights ending on December 2.
    The guerrilla force came into prominence during the early 1960's when both
Hanoi and Washington attempted to win over the mountain tribesmen, whose bases
stretched out along Vietnam's rugged Central Highlands.
    The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency supported the group with weapons and
training, provided by U.S. Special Forces.
    The defeat in 1975 of the U.S.-backed government in South Vietnam ended
regular military support for FULRO.
    FULRO continued to wage an intermittent guerrilla war against Hanoi, almost
up until their evacuation from their jungle home on October 10, said Y'hinnie.
    Faced with total isolation and suffering chronic health problems from the
rigours of life in the malarial mountain rainforests of Cambodia's isolated
northeast region, a 407-strong group sought refugee status from U.N.
peacekeepers based in Cambodia.
    "There were many, many problems. A suffering life for my Montagnard
people," Y'hinnie said.
    Following the evacuation from their jungle hideout, the FULRO tribespeople
were housed at a special transit camp 18 km (10 miles) south of Phnom Penh.
    They were placed in a compound surrounded by barbed wire and arc-lights for
their own protection, de Valensart said.
    He said U.N. soldiers from Ghana provided security in the tent-camp. They
were reinforced by the Montagnard fighters themselves, who patrolled the camp
at night.
    The first group to leave is expected to spend several days in the Thai
capital before heading for the United States.
    On Tuesday afternoon most of the FULRO group was busy watching a video
entitled "Becoming American."
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU