Aspiration

The aspirations of the Degar people are the same as the ones that the General Assembly called for – the recognition of the following basic rights of indigenous populations – in 1983. They were later written into international law in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007. This page sets out what the Degar (Montagnard) people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands are asking for, why, and how those demands connect to the commitments Vietnam has already made.

The rights the Degar people are asking for

To have access to land and natural resources, so that we may hunt, fish, farm, reconstruct our villages in the traditional style, and return to our own way of life. The right to our land – which has been denied for many years – is particularly in the light of the fundamental importance of this to our traditions, aspirations and survival.

  • To maintain within the areas where we live traditional economic structure and way of life; this should in no way affect our right to participate freely on an equal basis in the economic, social and political development of the country.
  • To maintain and use our own language, wherever possible, for administration and education.
  • To structure, conduct and control our own education system.
  • To enjoy freedom of religion or belief.
  • To have official status and to form our own representative organizations.
  • To call ourselves by our proper name and to express freely our own identity.

What we ask of the Vietnamese government

Most of all, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam must respect and follow the rules and laws of the United Nations which they have agreed and signed such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and so on.

  • The SRV government has to respect our ancestral territory.
  • The SRV government must stop the human rights violations in Vietnam especially in the Central Highlands.
  • The SRV government must stop their policies of genocide toward Degar people such as forced sterilization, killing our people by false accusation, killing our people with starvation by confiscating our farmlands and relocating our people to poor agricultural land (Fixed Field/Fixed Resident) and many more scheme of exterminating our race of people.

Why these rights matter to the Degar

For the Degar, land is not only a source of food and income. Villages, forests and burial grounds hold the history of each clan, and traditional law, language and religious life are tied to them. Since 1975, the arrival of large numbers of settlers from the lowlands and the spread of coffee and rubber plantations have taken much of this land. Families relocated under “fixed field, fixed residence” programmes often received poor land far from their villages. The loss of land has gone hand in hand with pressure on language, schooling and faith, which is why the aspirations above are listed together. You can read more about the history behind them on our pages Who Are the Degar? and BAJARAKA.

From the 1983 UN call to the 2007 Declaration

The 1983 call referred to above came from the early work of the United Nations on indigenous populations, which led over more than two decades to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration recognises, among other things, the right of indigenous peoples to the lands and resources they have traditionally owned or used (Article 26), to practise and revitalise their cultural traditions (Article 11), to manifest and practise their spiritual and religious traditions (Article 12), to establish and control their own educational systems in their own languages (Article 14), and not to be forcibly removed from their lands (Article 10). Each of these matches a Degar aspiration listed on this page. A full text of the Declaration in English and in the Degar (Rade) language is available on our page UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Where things stand today

These aspirations remain unmet. When the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviewed Vietnam in November 2023, its experts raised concerns about the confiscation of ancestral lands, evictions with only minimal compensation, and credible reports that the state was restricting and even criminalising religious and cultural activities of ethnic minorities, including efforts to force people to renounce their faith. The same concerns were raised by the Montagnard Foundation at the committee’s 80th session in 2012, when the committee also highlighted a pattern of racial discrimination in Vietnam. The day-to-day consequences are documented on our page about the persecution of the Degar people.

The Montagnard Foundation pursues these aspirations only through peaceful and lawful means. It does not seek to overthrow the Vietnamese government or to separate Degar lands from Vietnam, as explained in the MFI Statement of Clarification.

How the Degar have made their case